5. Don't be the movie, be the screen

"Don't be the movie, be the screen." A strange title, huh? What I mean is this. The movie of life is always changing. And as we live, the simple awareness - or beingness - that we are, knows that the content is always changing. But the awareness itself is steady, peaceful, never-changing, just like the movie screen. The problem is that we've forgotten who we are.

We feel anger and we say, "I'm angry." Or "I'm hurt, I'm sad, I'm devastated." Then a short time later something we like happens and we say, "I'm happy." Are we really? How could our thoughts be who we are, when they keep changing? Which one is the real you? The thoughts, I'm hurt or sad, are just thoughts. They're fickle. We think they define us. But what they really do is jerk us around because we attach to them and make them ours. In reality, thoughts come and go. You don't ask for them. They show up on their own. They don't mean anything; they have no substance. You can't take your stand on them.

Where we can look, instead, is to the awareness or the "unchanging" that allows the changing thoughts to exist. That unchanging is the pure knowing or seeing that you ARE, that you exist. You don't have to think to know that you are. Because you are, thoughts have a place to show up. But that pure knowing, or awareness, is never tainted by the thoughts that show up in it. The thoughts have no more significance than clouds passing in the sky.

Most of us live this way: One day on a date we're complimented and we feel great. Another day we're stood up, and we feel terrible. Will the real "me-feeling" stand up? Which is accurate? Obviously, neither. If we simply let it all go, and just turn inside rather than outside, to the pure sense of I-amness, or awareness, there's no problem. The pain has only been our attachment to our thoughts.

When thoughts of "it should be this way" or "I want it that way" show up, we can get entangled with them, start believing them and we'll hurt. Or we can just allow things to be the way they are, by turning inside and watching from that pure awareness that we are. Then, like the movie screen that never burns or gets wet no matter the movie, we just remain as the clear awareness, watching life unfold. There, is peace. There, is ease. There, is simple presence and joy.