Boundless Mind: Personal Unity 9

Inner Frontier
Fourth Way Spiritual Practice

Inner Work

For the week of December 24, 2017

Boundless Mind

To come into our boundless true mind, we begin by allowing our thoughts to subside, so that we can see through them. Toward that, we sit quietly, without actively attempting to control or shape our thoughts or experience. We patiently give the thoughts room to roam, room to exhaust themselves, which without guidance or resistance they will gradually do. This takes time. The amount of time varies. If our mind is ruminating about some burning issue, it takes longer. The more experience we have with entering our boundless mind, the less time it takes, perhaps even no time at all.

As we wait for our thoughts to settle, we simply let go, relaxing into our body. We are not expecting our thoughts to stop, though that may happen for brief periods. We just need our thoughts to slow down enough and for us to naturally wake up enough, so that we can enter the spaciousness between, around, and behind them. We come to rest in this vast cognitive stillness. When thoughts do arise they pass like lone translucent clouds floating through a boundless blue sky.

This boundless mind is not destroyed by our usual automatic proliferation of thoughts. We just lose contact with the vastness when our attention collapses into thoughts and other sensory impressions. Nothing impairs this pure consciousness. It is always here as the foundation of our awareness.

Even when inner storm clouds cover the boundless sky of our mind, we know that the blue sky still exists above all those clouds. And knowing that enables us to sidestep all the thoughts and become the vast sky surrounding them, by choosing to shift our attention, to shift our cognitive center of gravity back into the vastness. The thoughts may flow or even rage, but we remain in the undivided cognizant field through which they pass. In times of trouble, that place of inner peace can be our refuge, and in normal times our joy.

Once we become able to soak ourselves in that boundless mind during meditation, we can start bringing it into the rest of our day. As we go about our rounds, we find moments where we can settle into our deep mind and live a larger life than the one circumscribed by our usual thought patterns. We find it is possible to live in peace of mind and peace of heart, in this vast open space within us, a space that merges with the openness around us. We move into the one reality of our unified world. Yes, on the surface, we are fractured and the world around us is fractured. But beneath that surface, there is Oneness.

For this week, please practice entering your boundless mind.

Follow @innerfrontier

About Inner Frontier Send us email