Only Seeing

(Back from two and a half week retreat with Ruth Denison, at Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana Center, I am devoting the next few weeks to sharing Ruth's wonderful teachings.)

How to see form and shape without mind intervening and creating concepts? That is the challenge. The whole process is about consciousness seeing rather than thinking about. The mind is always working. We give it a rest with pure consciousness. We come to awareness so that the seeing experience is not constantly disturbed, and mixed with our thinking about it. This can only be realized in the present experience.

Tibetan Flags - Dhamma Dena Zendo

We practice by focusing on one sense experience, here seeing, and becoming aware when we all of a sudden start thinking. If thoughts come in and are relevant, then we are in atmosphere of reflecting. Then we go back to only seeing. We notice the tensing when the thinking mind gets involved. Always knowing what we are doing. We learn to use our whole equipment as a tool to achieve deeper purity of mind, and wisdom.