We may well rest in this final exercise, and bring all the understanding we have gathered into this hour. Keep in mind: actual change is not an idea or a concept; it only comes to life in direct experience.
Locate a place that is comfortable and firm. Breathe deeply, and consciously get in touch with your mind. Greet her like an old friend; observe what state she is in today, probably busy thinking, perhaps weary, or perhaps, very unusual, clear and serene.
Greet her kindly. Tell her you and she are soon going to venture into something deep: not merely observing the breath, but finding out what awareness is. Feel that little flash of attention, as though you were peering over the edge of an enigma that has been lurking there all the time, awaiting discovery.
Today, take your mind softly to the breath. Observe how quickly the mind starts to provide information: the feel of the air, the beat of breathing in and out, the in and out movement of your body. This is what your mind does, and what it is supposed to do: accumulating information on whatever you concentrate on.
Take notice of how hard it is to stay here. Inevitably, the mind will wander. Look through it: the movement was not your choice. It occurred spontaneously, as though it were the scanning system of your mind, running along the horizon.
And here is the present: you saw. You may draw attention back again. You always see, as you come home again, that you can decide where to rest.
When you feel your mind is on the move:
If your mind is steady:
Sit in silence for ten minutes.
Imagine now that your awareness is a camera lens that is gradually opening to admit more and more of your experience. As though in a big theater, you start paying attention not only to the key action, but to the stage as a whole: the background, the minor motions, the silent details going on all around you.
First layer, the external world:
Second layer, the internal landscape:
Third layer, mental activity:
Like the big sky, which contains all types of weather, experience plays out: each object arises, hangs about, dissolves naturally. And all along, you are the great conscious being in which it all is made.
Should you desire a bit of structure: do mild mental noting; gently ask, What now?; name what you notice as it passes. If your awareness is stable: rest in mere noticing; no need to label or name; let experiences flow in and out, untouched.
Sit in silence for five minutes.
Out of this broad consciousness, now look a little closer at the nature of experience itself. Suppose you are a scientist with a microscope, watching how everything unfolds into its reality. Be curious, be alert, like a child learning the world.
Take heed how all things flow in one perpetual stream: a sound appears… immediately the body responds, expansion or contraction. Thoughts are triggered in response. Memories awaken out of the depths. Emotional washes follow. Can you see it? One thing flowing seamlessly into the next.
Like the beads in a necklace: each moment gives birth to the next; nothing stands isolated; all is joined in movement; life never ceases to change, never rests.
Whatever now comes into your consciousness, follow closely: there is nothing in this experience which has no beginning. It lingers for a time. Then it fades away. All of it is constantly changing.
And through it all, watch this: you have been the witness everlasting. Unchanged by what appears. Unworn by what flows. Untouched by either pleasure or pain.
Life goes on its own way. Sounds, sensations, memories, emotions, all come in their time and fade away. There is no need to judge. No need to control. No need to cling. No need to resist. Just watch. Just see. Just remain.
Sit in silence for five minutes.
From this clear-seeing place, turn your attention to a deep, deep thing: your own nature. As a camera turned back on itself, look straight at the one who knows all this.
The essential question: what are you, in the midst of all this?
Look carefully: are you these changing experiences? Or are you the rootless consciousness upon which they are seen to rest?
Notice with precision: things come and disperse, but you are still there to see. Emotions surge and recede, yet you remain. Pain is transient, but you continue to witness it. Even weariness, even rest itself, appears in your everlasting presence.
Like the thread that flows through all the beads of a necklace: each experience is its own bead, some bright, some dark, some rough, some smooth. But the thread runs through them all: silent, steady, holding it all together.
See it clearly now: you do not start where the experiences start. You do not end when they end. You do not change when they change. You do nothing but remain as pure, conscious being.
Here, in this perception: there is nothing to pursue. Nothing to avoid. Nothing to grasp. Nothing to resist. Just be the consciousness that you already are. Let the display of life, every sound, every thought, every feeling, come and pass as it may.
It is what you are: not something to attain, not a special condition to be preserved, but what has always been here. That awareness which in all its experiences always remains the same; in which each experience plays a brief dance, and fades back into silence.
Sit in silence for five minutes.
It is in this stage, as an athlete in the final, toughest training, that a person develops real strength. We lean in, but do not push; we build our ability to remain conscious even when the storms of life blow in.
When waves of experience break on your shore:
And yet, you remain. Like an island in tempestuous water: unshaken by the winds; rising despite the crashing waves; still here as the storm goes by; always the same, whether in sunshine or shadow. You are that island. The consciousness that withstands it all.
Now every kind of experience is a ship in your harbor: some ships are filled with treasures, cargo of joy, love, and peace. Others carry great burdens: worry, sorrow, misery. Some remain but a little time. Others linger longer than you would like. But you, the harbor, the island, are never the ships. You don't rise with the tide of joy. You don't sink with the weight of sorrow. You just stay, firm ground under it all.
In the same way that muscles are strengthened through resistance, awareness is strengthened through difficulty, through remaining present. Be here when the mind would fly. Be conscious as emotion pours like a tide. Keep firm when thoughts fly and run. Watch on, despite the pain pushing.
This is not about coercing and oppressing. It is about resting in your real stand as consciousness: allowing things to pass and flow with time; staying grounded, stable, and unbound.
Sit in silence for five minutes.
Now, in these final, dear moments of practice, let us give full attention to the deepest thing: the very heart of what you are. As identification with each object is released, your true character is revealed.
Like an open, expansive sky that contains all types of weather, storms, sunshine, soft clouds, unlimited night, you find yourself as the space that makes it all possible.
The ultimate question: what are we left with, abandoning all we think we are? When we see clearly that: every feeling is merely a thing that goes past; all emotions are transient, no matter how powerful; the thoughts come, stay and pass; even our identity, which we hold dear, is merely a tale that we see in awareness. Do we die away with them? Or do we find something more, something unchanging?
In this clear seeing, here, is freedom glittering through: no thing can make you do. No feeling is able to fix your decisions. No thought can define you. No experience can confine you.
Like an island standing: ships may come and go; storms may rage and settle; waves may rise and crash. But the island is still there, unchanged.
You are: without any objects; without any definitions; able to feel anything; bound by nothing. And in this openness is a plenitude immeasurable:
End with five minutes of silence.
This practice is one of seventeen in the book.
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