Two Kinds of Knowing
Dos Clases de Conocer
This meditation invites you to notice the difference between raw, direct experience and the interpretations your mind adds on top of it.
Two Kinds of Knowing
Direct experience and interpretation
Let's explore what is happening.
There's the knowing of what is happening,
and then there's the interpretation.
These are two kinds of knowing.
There's the experience of sound, of sensation.
You could call that the knowing from being.
Direct, raw experiencing.
And then there's a knowing that's interpretation:
these sensations are my hands,
I'm sitting,
listening to a meditation.
The raw knowing is just sensation.
Just sounds,
images that appear as thoughts.
And the knowing of the mind, the interpretation,
is based in memories.
Without memories, all that is left is the knowing through being, direct experience.
What is this I?
What is it that knows this experience,
what we call I?
Without memory,
without interpretation,
what is this I that knows?
Notice how the interpretation,
the knowing through memory,
appears as you look for the nature of this I.
The image of the body,
the image of the face,
ideas of a person,
imagined futures.
Noticing the habit,
the temptation to place this image at the center of I.
This assumption,
this belief.
Resting in not knowing
Let it rest, and then, not knowing.
Let the sensations appear and move.
Allow the breath to be free.
Give no importance to thoughts or emotions.
If there's discomfort,
just let it be.
Just a temporary sensation passing by.
Silence at the heart
The heart of what knows all of this:
there is silence.
It's too close, too intimate to be found.
It's just here.
That which knows the noisy mind is silent.
That which knows discomfort and sensations and stormy emotions is silence.
Too close to be found, and everywhere.
Don't try to find it.