How to Tap into Your Awareness
Meditation is often misunderstood as a way to stop thinking or to achieve peace and calm. However, meditation is simply about connecting with awareness, or knowing what one is thinking, feeling, doing, seeing, and hearing. There are two common misconceptions about meditation: the need to stop thinking or to achieve peace and calm. The speaker, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, shares his personal experience with panic attacks and how meditation helped him overcome it. He learned meditation from his father, who taught him that meditation is not about fighting panic but rather connecting with awareness, which is always present, pure, and calm. Rinpoche says that you can use an object, like a sound, to help you connect with awareness. One can simply close their eyes, listen to the sound, and let the thoughts and emotions come and go, remembering to just listen to the sound. The speaker admits that he had trouble with meditation not because of how to do it, but because he was too lazy to do it. Overall, meditation is easy and simple, just about being aware and connecting with one’s thoughts, feelings, and surroundings.