Awareness As Your Refuge

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about awareness as your refuge. This is a line that I've heard from the teacher, Ajahn Sumedho, and it's part of a longer passage in one of his writings. He says, "Awareness is your refuge." awareness is your refuge. Now, since you've been with us on Mindfulness.com for some time, you're aware of this idea of awareness that we're touching into in our meditation practice.

It's the part of us that is able to know what is happening without being consumed by what is happening. It's the part of you that is aware that you're thinking without being caught in your thoughts. It's a part of you that sees, oh yeah, I'm feeling this right now, but you can create some distance from it where you're not absorbed and sucked into that experience. Awareness is in the backdrop of every single moment. And the beauty of awareness is that it's, it's unchanging.

It's not subject to the same laws of transience, as thoughts are, as emotions are, as sensations are. And when we try to take refuge in a certain emotion, like a positive emotion such as joy, we'll always get stuck and we'll always feel like we're failing because the nature of emotions is to change. The nature of thoughts is to change. The nature of the felt experience in your body is to change. And so it's a really deep inquiry to look at.

What does a more sustainable form of happiness and wellbeing look like in life? If I were to take refuge in something in my experience, what could that be when everything is changing? And that's where awareness comes in. Of course, you don't have to take any of this at face value. I mean, the whole beauty of meditation is that you get to explore this for yourself and discern, does this feel true for you? At least in my experience and the many deep meditators who have come before me, there's something about awareness that is unique to any aspect of our experience. It's steady, it's there and it can hold all of you without becoming it. And for that reason, as we spend more time dwelling in awareness of our experience, rather than the experience itself, we start to re identify our sense of self.

And that that sense of self then becomes bigger and more expansive and more spacious than the momentary experience moving through it. So take this into your meditation today and see if you can take it with you throughout your day. Thank you for your practice and let's settle into today's meditation.