The Wisdom of the Shamans by don Jose Ruiz

Author:don Jose Ruiz
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781938289736
Publisher: Hierophant Publishing

The Mastery of Awareness

The word awareness is deceptively simple. In the modern world it is applied in a variety of ways to describe things like being conscious, knowledgeable, informed, or even sophisticated, but none of these uses of the word captures the awareness that is intrinsic to the Toltec tradition. For the Toltecs, the word awareness describes a practice that goes much deeper.

The practice of awareness begins with being fully present in the moment, giving your full attention to everything that is happening around you. Awareness includes a willingness to experience what is happening now and observe everything that comes into your field of perception as new in that moment, even when your mind says you have seen it a thousand times before.

Awareness also means using all your senses to take in what is happening: the sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and feelings. Many of us rely on our dominant sense (for most of us this is sight) to give us information about the world, and when we neglect our other senses, it is easier for the mind to hook our attention because we are only perceiving the world through one source. When we use all our senses to practice awareness, it is easier to stay grounded in what is happening in the now rather than getting drawn into the stories our minds are spinning. As you practice your awareness, consider each of your senses and what they are telling you in the moment: What do you smell? What do you hear? How do things feel? What do you taste?

While the practice of awareness begins by bringing your attention to what is going on outside of you, it doesn't stop there. Having awareness also means that you notice your mind's reaction to those outer happenings, including any labels, stories, beliefs, or ideas that are arising, especially the ones that activate the mind's addiction to suffering.

By being aware of our mental constructs, we are better able to see through any beliefs, ideas, or stories that aren't true before they provoke a reaction in us. In this way, we are actually catching the mind as it tries to feed its addiction to suffering, and we sidestep the traps when they come up.

Awareness of what is happening inside our mind can help us in large and small ways. For a small example, let's say someone compliments you by saying, “You are such a great person.” Now, at one level, this is a wonderful compliment and seems relatively harmless. And it is harmless—as long as you don't invest too much of your happiness in it or any other compliment for that matter.

If you do, then when someone tells you the opposite or you don't receive praise or compliments from others, you set yourself up for unhappiness. If one person tells you you're a great person but another person doesn't comment, you may feel disappointed, because your identity has become attached to the approval of others. By noticing your reaction to compliments or the lack thereof,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.