The Mind

I have always felt with "seeing" that if thoughts, feelings and body sensations are not taken into account, then I am fooling myself. And that awareness is not complete. Since you talk about finding a practice where you become "solely aware of the happenings of the mind"....and you mention some sitting meditation in this regard, I just wanted to share my experience that when I remember "seeing", I focus on thoughts and feelings (or perhaps I should I say, I make sure I don't ignore them), because they seem to be the closest layer in the "screen" of awareness, or at any rate, the easiest to overlook and deceive yourself about, and because this is the layer I really identify with.

I'll also say "Headless" seeing is not really a visual thing, that's why you can do it with closed eyes and why you can look at your feelings and thoughts this "way". It is a seeing that encompasses everything. So to walk on the street and see the trees passing me by (a strictly visual thing) helps me see the nothingness I am and therefore the "resulting" "unanchoredness" of those emotions, feelings and thoughts; and then everything becomes a whole. In other words, seeing the trees move helps me see how the mind and body feelings appear against no background, out of nowhere (visual stuff and non-visual stuff in one "seeing"). So I tend to think that one doesn't necessarily have to sit to solely focus on the thoughts in order to "apply seeing to the mind" (your expression), and that walking, without ignoring these thoughts, can actually be very helpful. And if you do sit, you can also apply "seeing" to the mind in the same way as in walking. In this case the room and its furnishings will be there, along with smells and sounds, and your unanchored thoughts, feelings and sensations.

I'll just add one more thing that I find is helpful in order to "see" thoughts and feelings particularly, how they arise from nowhere, and thus help "unhinge" them: to ask in the Ramana Maharshi way "To whom do these feelings appear?" "Where does this sensation come from?" It can be done with the most seemingly central and deepest thought/feeling one may have. The "who am I" inquiry and related questions are definitely like pointing fingers. E.C. USA

Regarding the relationship between Seeing and thinking, the results of my experiments are as follows:

When I am say, writing, and I become aware of myself as the space in which the hand is moving a pen on paper, then thought instantly goes quiet leaving only awareness... Then thought comes in with "oh, silence, how interesting!" and it's over - for the moment. Repeated observations allow the further awareness that behind or containing thought, however frenetic, is the silence, the perfect clarity of being, or not-being. This awareness is fragile and very easily lost, however. R. UK.

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