Hello, and welcome back to practicing human, the podcast where every day we're getting a little better at life

I'm your host, Corey Miscara, and in today's episode

I'm going to talk about the progression of being unaware of thoughts to a more meditative awareness of thoughts and the

Different stages that happen in that more to come on that in a moment first let settle in together with the sound of the bells

Okay, so thoughts are one of the big things that we're working with in, well, our life, but especially in our meditation practice. And there tends to be a particular progression that we move through in terms of

Distancing ourselves from our thoughts, but more what I mean by that is a non-identification with thoughts. So in the beginning, much of what we realize is just how unconscious we often are that we're having thoughts. We could call this stage

Just being unconscious to the thinking mind. Thoughts are happening in the background. We're unaware of them. They're triggering emotions, they're triggering

Behaviors and actions. And the first step that we move into with any sort of contemplative practice, like meditation, is moving from this unconscious stage to being aware of, oh, I'm having a thought. I'm thinking right now. And that is a massive jump. This is just like the foundation of self-awareness.

It's like, oh, there are thoughts happening right now. And now you're able to relate to thoughts with more spaciousness and any sort of relationship you can choose. I'm going to accept this thought. I'm going to react to this thought, not going to take this thought so seriously.

That all becomes available to you when you step away from just, okay, my mind is thinking to, oh, I'm aware that my mind is thinking.

I'm now watching my thoughts. And if you've, if you have a practice or even maybe you've engaged in something like CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, chances are you've experienced that shift. And the liberating quality that comes with that. Oh, I'm watching my mind think.

There's another layer that we can step into as our meditation practice deepens. And this is the main thing I want to talk about on today's episode. And that is the shift from I'm watching my thoughts to watching is happening.

Now, can you sense the difference even as I just share those, those two distinctions? I'm watching thoughts does have, there's a sense of agency in it, which is why it is liberating. You're, you're able to distance yourself from the thoughts.

And what you're now identified with is the watcher. And that can be quite powerful. But there is still a sense of self in it, the sense of like, oh, there's a me, a quarry behind all of this, that is now watching thoughts.

And that can still lead to a small sense of self and this sense of like, I need to do something with this or react in a certain way.

There's another, another layer of what you could call transcendence where yourself expands. Now, even beyond the watcher and you just realize, oh, there are thoughts and there's awareness of thoughts.

And that process is all sort of just happening without me needing to do anything. It's not like I need to try to be the watcher, try to be aware of my thoughts. All of that's happening.

Watching is happening. Awareness is happening. And as we deepen into, into that quality of awareness, that layer of contemplation of our experience, the sense of self expands.

Because anytime something goes from a subject to object, that is the thing that is watching now becomes the thing being watched, being observed, the observer expands, the watcher expands.

And this is essentially how you can go to deeper and deeper states of liberation, freedom and enlightenment where the sense of the watcher is so, so vast, there's no longer any identification with it.

You basically just blended your consciousness with universal, universal consciousness.

We'll go too deep into that because that's that, well, once we start getting into ideas, like universal consciousness, I feel like I just have to qualify more things that I'm saying.

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