Daily Word: Be The Witness of Your Thoughts
Read or listen to this writing:
Recently, I had a weird dream that had me thinking for a while. Normally I do not think that every dream I have is some great revelation of some sort, but there has been some that have revealed me some great truths. This dream had a message that was trying to make itself known to me.
This is how the dream went…
In my dream I was walking on top of a high mountain with a group of friends. I knew that this mountain was a mountain that many people have climbed. In my dream I said, “In order to get rid of my fear, I need to climb down this mountain.”
My friends thought I was crazy, but I just walked over to the edge of the mountain and started to climb down. As I started to climb down, I looked down the mountain and realized that it was too steep and I couldn’t do it. I was petrified and I felt like I was going to fall and lose my grip. I said to myself, “Why did I do this, what was I thinking, I am going to fall and kill myself.” Then I look to my left side and I saw that there were flatter edges of the mountain that will allow me to place my feet and climb back up. I leaped towards the left and started to climb out, and then I made it to the top.
Finally I stood next to my friends and one of my friends took some photos of me trying to climb the mountain. As he showed me the photo, I noticed it was a photo of “myself” looking at “myself” climbing down the mountain. I was confused because, how can I be in a photo staring at myself staring at myself. When I woke up from the dream, I didn’t understand what it meant.
After a couple of days it finally hit me, I thought of a scripture from the Dhammapada that made sense of it.
The Elephant
“Awake. Be the witness of your thoughts.”
It made sense to me; I was observing myself climbing a mountain which was too difficult for me to climb. These past few days, I have been struggling with quieting my thoughts and I felt like I was trying to hard which was wearing me out. Lately I have been asking in prayer, that I want to learn more on how to control my thoughts.
This was my answer…I need to be the observer of my thoughts, of my sensations, of my feelings, of my desires. I need to watch them and understand that is the only thing I can do, watch them as they come and go, without clinging to my thoughts or feelings. It’s like staring at cars driving fast in a highway, you can choose to look and describe each one by one by saying the year of the car, what kind of car it is, what color, what horse power it has etc.. and then do this to every car that drives by.
The problem is there are too many cars driving by in a fast pace, and you will become overwhelm trying to identify each car. The cars are symbolic to your thoughts and feelings. As they past by in your mind, do not attach to each thought, do not identify each thought, just see it and let it go without trying to make it go away.
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit.”
Old Testament – Zechariah 4:6
Your True Self, your Buddha Nature, your Christ Nature, God within whatever you want to call it, that Divine Nature within you is who does these things. You do not need to force your mind to be quiet, because it’s not by power, its not by might, but its by letting go and doing nothing. Your True Nature lives in total emptiness, detached from trying or forcing anything.
That is why in my dream, I decided to climb down a mountain in order “to get rid of my fear,” but that was by MY might an by MY power, in which I later realized that I couldn’t do it. I just have to watch and observe my thoughts as it comes and goes.
On the same week I had my dream, I happen to bump into the same teaching in a book that I am currently reading, called “Entering the Stream.” I was reading a chapter called “The Practice of Recollection,” which is also about self awareness.
These are the lines that confirmed my message to me:
“What then is “practice” of recollection? How does one go about it? Recollection is, quite simply, remembering to establish the attention with full awareness on the present, on the here and now. It is the “unsupported thought,” the “fast of the mind,” the true “noble silence.” As each object arises into consciousness, through whichever of the six entrances (the five senses and the imagination), it must be seen as it is, without welcoming it or rejecting it, without clinging to it or trying to push it aside-just “letting it go as though it were a piece of rotten wood,” as the great Huang Po puts it. This is the real meaning of the “Middle Way” of Buddhism, to see each (and every) object as it arises, with a mind that is “alert, fully-conscious and self-recollected, avoiding either attachment or aversion to anything.” Do not like, do not dislike, all will then be clear.”
Summary:
1. Be the observer of your thoughts and feelings, do not force to quiet your mind, just observe it, and it will go away.
2. Be in the present moment, the here and now.
I hope this was some help as it was for me.
Be well, take care, namaste!
Your Internet Friend!
