Meditation Notes 1: Witnessing

To "witness" does not mean detaching the observer from the observed. Rather, I embrace the whole continuum of my mind, with all its thoughts, as one dynamic emptiness. There is no "I" who witnesses thoughts. Rather, there is just this trackless ocean of vibrant stillness, thoughts arising and dissolving as waves of silence.

Thoughts are not other than the stillness of the witness. Thoughts are not other than emptiness. But this stillness, this emptiness, is playful and dynamic. Enjoy thoughts as the ecstatic play of the formless.

Detachment is just another version of duality: "witness" vs. "thoughts." And such detachment is a subtle form of violence, division.

The condition of witnessing is simply to refrain from grasping or rejecting. Do not grasp one thought out of the stream as more significant. Do not reject another thought as less. Whether pure or impure, whether positive or negative, all thoughts are one continuum, the playful wave-nature of the void.

We may think that we are rational, but the truth is, thought happens for no reason.

Therefor we don't have to turn thought-waves into thought-particles: that is, into points of view that are separate from the continuum of emptiness. Rippling bubbling thought is the texture of stillness, the soundless echo of a gong never struck.

Just as the ocean can be whole in the midst of its waves, I can be still in the dance of thoughts, because there actually is no "I." There is only boundless awakened space where the dance happens. This space is self-luminous and delightful whether thoughts happen or not, because, as long as it is not grasped, a thought is just a tremor of that emptiness.