The Point of Stillness

Through the practice of meditation we learn valuable skills such as how to concentrate, relax and consciously manage our mental focus. The more we thus become masters, or competent managers, of our minds, the more we become aware of the key fact that we are more than our minds.

It has been said that we are a ‘triple alliance’ of body, mind and spirit. This begs the question of what is spirit? Here is the beginning of a simple, practical answer: it is that which is aware of our thoughts, of all the contents of the mind.

One might say that we observe negative thoughts and think to ourselves, ‘that is unhelpful, let us think differently’, and that this is just another thought. But let us note that there is an awareness of both thoughts, and their different qualities. To avoid infinite regress we must recognise the awareness over the mind.

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This article is from the Summer 2019 issue of Self-Knowledge Journal.