We spend countless hours cleaning our homes and maintaining our physical appearance, but how much time do we dedicate to tidying up the space where we truly live—our minds? Just as we wouldn’t want to live in a cluttered house, we shouldn’t have to navigate through mental chaos day after day. Yet that’s exactly what many of us do.
Think about it: everything we experience, whether it’s the warmth of sunlight on our skin or the complex emotions of falling in love, comes to us through our minds. Our sense organs may receive stimuli, but it’s our minds that interpret and give meaning to these experiences. In essence, our minds are the projectors of our reality.
The Cinema of Our Mind
Imagine sitting in a movie theater. When we’re caught up in a compelling film, we laugh, cry, and feel genuine emotions about the events unfolding on screen. But what’s really happening? Light is simply being projected through rapidly moving frames, creating an illusion of continuous movement and story. This is very similar to how our minds work.
Our thoughts and feelings are like those individual frames, while the source of our awareness is like the projector’s light. We get so caught up in the “movie” of our daily experiences that we forget we’re watching a projection. We become completely identified with our thoughts and emotions, believing them to be who we are.
The Two Faces of Mind
Our mental experience has two distinct aspects:
- The Known: This includes our thoughts, memories, daydreams, and emotions—all the content of our mental experience.
- The Knower: This is the awareness itself—the observer that witnesses all our mental activity.
Most of us are constantly immersed in the Known, riding the waves of our thoughts and emotions like a leaf in a turbulent ocean. One day we’re happy, the next we’re miserable. But behind all this mental weather, there exists a vast, peaceful awareness—the Knower—that remains unchanged and unaffected.
Finding Freedom Through Awareness
The key to mental freedom isn’t in controlling or eliminating our thoughts and emotions. Rather, it’s in changing our relationship with them. Instead of being swept away by every passing thought, we can learn to be like a skilled surfer, riding the waves of our mental experience with balance and awareness.
This is where meditation comes in. But it’s not about achieving some special state of mind—it’s about recognizing what’s already there. Every time we hear a sound, see a sight, or think a thought, we’re only able to do so because of awareness. Yet we’re so captivated by the content of our experience that we miss the awareness itself.
The Gateway to Non-Duality
As your practice deepens, our mind becomes calmer and clearer. when the thoughts have slowed to a gentle meandering stream, we can start to see the individual frames of your mental movie. These frames begin to separate, revealing glimpses of what lies behind them—the projector’s light itself, the source of our consciousness, the center of our awareness.
In these precious moments, something extraordinary occurs: the one who knows and that which is known merge into one. The observer and the observed dissolve into pure, non-dual awareness. There is no longer a separate “I” who is aware; there is only awareness itself, bare and pristine.
Practical Steps to Mental Clarity
- Create Space: Allow yourself moments of simply being, without doing anything in particular. Notice what’s happening in your body and mind without judgment.
- Observe the Observer: When you hear birds singing or feel emotions arising, ask yourself: Who is aware of these experiences? What is this knowing quality that recognizes these phenomena? Instead of being swept away in the river of thoughts, practice observing them from the bank. Don’t judge them as good or bad—simply watch them flow by.
As you practice this way, something remarkable happens. The usually turbulent stream of thoughts begins to slow down. What was once a rushing waterfall becomes a gentle meandering river. In moments of clear seeing, the gap between the observer and the observed dissolves, revealing a spacious, peaceful awareness that was there all along.
Beyond Knowledge to Direct Experience
It’s important to note that reading about these concepts is very different from experiencing them directly. Understanding the theory is like reading a menu—helpful, but not the same as tasting the food. The real transformation comes through practice, through repeatedly turning our attention to the knowing quality of our minds rather than getting lost in the known.
Remember, we’re not trying to achieve something new or special. We’re simply uncovering what’s already here—the vast, clear sky of awareness that exists behind the clouds of our thoughts and emotions. This is our true nature, our real home.
The next time you find yourself caught up in mental turbulence, pause and ask: Who is aware of all this? In that simple question lies the key to profound peace and clarity.
Your mind is already perfect—vast, clear and peaceful like the sky. All you need to do is recognize it.
This post is based on the teaching of Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo – The Nature of the Mind.