Think of mind as a sense organ – one that picks up and translates vibration into thoughts and sensory experiences. It has two habits that help us survive as beings, but don’t serve so well when navigating the deeper levels of consciousness. The first habit is attaching an I-sense to some of the thoughts and sensory experiences and the second habit is attaching an emotional coloring to the experience, such as pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or undesirable.
The I-sense differentiates the experiences into components that are “me” and components that are “not me”. The moment we attach an I-sense to an experience, the energy vibration that the mind has translated sticks and becomes part of our energetic structure. As soon as we differentiate the experience into pleasure and pain, we suffer. Think of all the years we spend with these habits, collecting and differentiating over and over again. To quote one of my teachers, “The mind is a hoarder.” After many years, many lifetimes of hoarding, there’s no more room in our energetic houses for energy to pass through. We react to every single little thing that hits us.
When we meditate, we focus with single pointed concentration on an object. Object and observer dissolve into each other – become one – and a little bit of that stuck energy clears out. This happens again and again. Each time, our energetic structure becomes a little more empty. Our houses start to clear out and, when we open a window (pay attention), the breeze can move through. We feel the breeze of energy hitting our obstructions, vibrating them. For a while, the mind continues its habit of interpreting the vibrations into thoughts and sensory experiences, and we ride these out, refraining from judging them as bad or good, unpleasant or pleasant. Simply watching the play of consciousness.
Now, instead of doing, the meditation becomes an undoing. In stillness, we watch the mind’s translations. Eventually, even the habit of translating starts to go, and one simply abides in silent clarity.