Consider this...
An empty lot… an open space. Nothing appears within it.
Then one day, a building rises there—walls… windows… movement… identity. And suddenly the mind says, "The space is gone.”
But is it?
Or is the space still there… quietly holding the appearance of the building?
The structure came. The structure will go. Yet the space itself was never harmed… never reduced… never lost.
The ancient mystics pointed toward this endlessly.
The Taoists called it the usefulness of emptiness. The Zen masters spoke of the no-mind that reflects all things without clinging. The Vedantins whispered that awareness remains untouched by the changing scenery of life. Even modern physics hints that form emerges from a deeper, invisible field.
Now turn inward.
Awareness is like that empty space.
Thoughts appear within it. Sensations move through it. Feelings rise and fall like weather across an open sky.
For a moment, a thought occupies the field—just as a building occupies the lot.
And because attention becomes fascinated with the structure… with the object appearing within awareness… we forget the very space that allows it to exist.
But when the thought fades… what remains?
Awareness.
Still here. Still present. Still untouched.
The thought came and went. The awareness did not.
This is why the sages say, "You are not the passing clouds." You are the sky in which they appear.
Consider the mirror.
A mirror reflects war and peace… beauty and ugliness… joy and grief… yet it remains unstained by every image passing across it.
Awareness functions in the same way.
It does not declare a thought good or bad. It does not resist or cling. It simply allows.
It simply holds the space for experience to appear… and disappear.
But then something curious happens.
A thought appears—and identity gives it meaning.
Conditioning interprets it. Memory labels it. Behavior reinforces it.
"Perhaps as children, in order to navigate and relate to the world around us, we were slowly taught what everything was supposed to mean. 'This means success." “This means failure.” “This means love.” “This means rejection.” “This means who you are.”
And slowly… the pure openness of awareness became crowded with inherited interpretations.
The mind became a collector of meanings.
Yet thoughts, by themselves, may be empty of meaning—mere movements in consciousness… ripples passing through the infinite field of awareness.
Identification is what gives them weight. A belief that gives them power. Attachment that turns passing weather into personal suffering.
And so the great invitation of the mystics was never to destroy thought… but to see thought clearly.
To recognize, the canvas is untouched by the painting. The screen is untouched by the movie. The mirror is untouched by the reflection. The space is untouched by what appears within it temporarily.
And perhaps this is the quiet liberation:
Not becoming a new self… but remembering the open awareness that was here before every thought, during every thought, and after every thought has disappeared into silence once again.
Visit nycfitliving.com—where fitness, mindfulness, and awareness come together to build real strength, clarity, and lasting well-being.
Comments
Post a Comment