Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.

Today, I'm going to talk about how

to shift from feeling like your

mind is your enemy to embracing

your mind as a friend and an ally.

So, this is actually one of the things

that I noticed is an obstacle for many

people when it comes to training the mind.

It's this subtle or not so subtle

attitude towards the mind that it's

an opponent to overcome, an opponent

to subdue, control or manipulate.

So some people even go as far

as to say that they want to

destroy the ego, get rid of it.

There's this feeling in other words

of aggression towards the mind.

So this thing gets set up in our attitude,

that awareness as the good guy and that

the thinking mind is the bad guy, like

they're in opposition to each other.

But this is not at all

the case with meditation.

So when we're training the mind,

there's obviously a lot of instruction

about, you know, letting go of being

caught up in the thinking mind and

coming back to awareness, letting

go and coming back to awareness.

So, of course, sometimes we might

feel a little bit frustrated by that

experience when the mind wanders and

we have to keep bringing it back.

But if we keep believing that the thinking

mind is bad and awareness is good, then

we're always going to feel this sense of

being locked in battle with ourselves.

There'll always be this sense of tension

and frustration in our meditation.

We sort of feel like something's

going wrong when thinking's arising.

But then if we consider what the

essence of meditation is all about,

it's actually to rest in this

non-judgmental, compassionate and

accepting awareness of the present moment.

So we have more of an

attitude of befriending what's

arising, no matter what it is.

And so of course that includes thoughts.

So when we're resting in awareness, we're

not judging anything as good or bad.

We're not trying to

fix or change anything.

We're not believing that anything

should be different than it is.

Instead, we honor everything that arises.

And we see that it's in the nature of

the mind to think, just like it's in

the nature of the sun to shine, it's

in the nature of the birds to sing.

And so we just let that be as it is.

So in meditation, we

simply witness thinking.

We rest in awareness and in doing

so we're no longer caught up in the

thoughts so they no longer hook us.

So we experience a greater sense

of freedom and peace of mind.

So always remember as you practice

that your mind is not your enemy

and just see if you can embrace,

allow it and meet it with a loving

awareness that's larger than it all.

So as always, thank you for your

practice and your presence here with us.

And now let's settle in

for today's meditation.