Calm Presence: Transcending the Chattering Mind

A lot of people think that because the word mind is in mindfulness,

Then mindfulness depends on the mind.

Mindfulness does not come from thought.

Mindfulness does not depend on thought.

Mindfulness is above and beyond the mind.

How could that be?

Well,

I mean yoga talks about the higher mind.

Yoga says Brahman,

The God force,

Is an actual energy field that is made of consciousness.

In other words,

All of the nature around you right now is breathing.

Conscious.

So,

Consciousness The ability to be awake.

That does not depend on thinking.

It's above thinking.

I want to give you some examples of how to think of mindfulness.

Imagine a salad bowl.

The salad bowl itself is mindfulness.

The cucumber.

.

.

The tomato,

The lettuce,

Those are changing thoughts,

Changing moods,

Changing physical sensations.

Another analogy you'll always hear is the sky itself.

The sky is mindfulness.

The thoughts,

The moods are the clouds moving through the sky.

And so people have problems thinking that.

Mindfulness has nothing to do with thinking.

But it's beyond and above.

Thoughts.

It's the higher mind that is able to witness.

The chattering thinking mind.

One quality of mindfulness,

And the Buddha came up with this.

Think of mindfulness as a projector with light.

If you shine mindfulness on.

.

.

Any self-limiting habits,

Belief.

If you just shine the light.

Of mindfulness on anger,

On jealousy,

On depression.

That that attitude,

That mood,

That emotion starts to lose its grip on you.

And so you ask,

Okay,

What is the technical reason?

And that.

Zooming mindfulness.

On depression or anger.

What is the technical reason?

That that dissolves.

The mood or the emotion.

We come back to this famous mantra,

Attention carries the God force.

When you are mindful Your attention is on the present moment.

You cannot be mindful and be thinking about the future or the past.

Doesn't exist.

If you're mindful,

You're right here.

Okay,

So mindfulness means you're right here in this instant.

If you're in this instant,

You cannot believe.

A passing mood,

A passing thought,

Or a passing sensation.

So come back to this.

Attention carries the God horse.

If your attention is on the present moment,

Then your attention cannot be.

On a thought about the future,

The past.

Regret,

Worry,

Anxiety.

All of the things I just named cannot exist in the present moment.

You cannot be worried in the present moment.

Ask a rock climber.

In the middle of El Capitan.

They're hanging by their nails.

Ask them if they're worried about the future.

If they answer you,

They're going to fall off.

They have to be intensely there.

The reason mindfulness dissolves baggage is because all baggage is in the subconscious mind.

There's this reservoir called the subconscious mind.

It holds all of your past memories,

Your parents' beliefs,

The beliefs of the church,

The mosque,

The synagogue,

The culture of your society.

All of that is in this one box called the subconscious.

The subconscious is never in the present moment.

Subconscious is what you have stored,

Like your mother used to break your heart or your life.

That's not about this moment.

So all of your memories about your mother are in a box called the subconscious.

When you're mindful,

You go around the subconscious mind,

You ignore the subconscious mind.