You hear a car honk. Where is the honking.
Our constructed reality says, “it’s over there”.
But looking from the mindful point of view we know the honk is really just another thought in our mind. In a real and meaningful way, we are the honk in that moment. All of the layering of distance and attitude and association with past experience is layered on, not really as real as saying it is a part of our open mind.
So then, what can we say about the nature of open awareness itself? It doesn’t filter or block out sensation. It lives deeper than the layers of judgement or memory or rumination. It’s nature is one of radical acceptance. It says, “yes, thank you”, to all experience. It’s like a calm surface of water, reflecting reality without exception. Being at the level of the open mind is what it is like to find what’s left when everything else drops away.
Why is this useful?
When we find ourselves caught up in cycles of thought, understanding this can give some perspective. Where our misery and tension and stress lives, is in the upper layers of experience. Drop back and see those parts of the mind for what they really are: a superficial creation of the mind. Your reality could very well have been constructed in a different way as to build a more peaceful, pleasant construction. Relax in the base layer of radical acceptance and see how that feels. Then start building thoughtfully and skillfully from there anew.