Every morning I diligently roll out my mat and do a simple breathing and meditation practice. And each morning I hope for the best; moments of calm amidst the storm of thoughts. What I’ve learned through years of consistent practice is that the mind is not supposed to be still. In fact its job is to remind us that we’re awake. Thoughts are like photographs, they remind us of situations, events and ideas. I’m fascinated by how a thought can blossom into an idea, which becomes a rambling vine of flowers tumbling from mind onto paper.

This morning I was thinking about how mindfulness techniques are designed to cultivate awareness. But what does it mean to cultivate awareness? Is awareness a garden that needs planting? Awareness isn’t something that grows. Have you ever tried to compare awareness to anything? Awareness is like…

Awareness just is.  When I say I am cultivating awareness I’m making awareness personal. But how can I personalise consciousness? It’s like trying to own the sky. Perhaps what I really mean is that I am observing a mechanism, which thinks, defines and categorises thoughts.

Catching that I’m thinking is the beginning, knowing the thinker is the final resolution. Cultivating awareness is often associated with mindfulness. And meditation is seen as the tool. But immersed in the act of meditation one must assume the role of meditator. Losing oneself in the role “ trying to meditate” one can never realise oneself as the meditation itself.

Awareness, meditation, yoga are all words for the same thing. That objectless, nameless presence in which the world of objects including the objects of our thoughts play out.

One cannot do awareness one can only be awareness, that which is already existing. One can’t make awareness one’s own and there’s no need to. It is that in which everything is owned. All thoughts, even the thought of being awareness resolves in awareness…

So what’s more important growing awareness or knowing who is aware?