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... Thoughts arise like mist... Exploring the gentle emergence of thoughts and the sovereignty of sensation in our shared field of presence.
This Is Where We Begin
Let’s return to that circle—not to repeat, but to reveal something new.
It was the end of an ear acupuncture group. We were still in that in-between place—part silence, part story. Someone asked, “What’s the most profound thing you’ve ever experienced?”
I looked around: chairs creaking, eyes fluttering open, breath slowing down.
I didn’t answer with a vision or a miracle. I said, “This.”
This gathering. This silence. This not-doing.
But let’s go further now.
Let’s ask: What is this moment made of?
Because even in silence, there are thoughts. Quiet as it seems, there’s a swirl beneath the surface. And that’s where this chapter begins:
With the realization that thought doesn’t wait for our permission. It simply arises.
Like steam from a mug. Like wind through the trees.
Not planned. Not invited. Just… here.
What Presence Therapy invites us to explore next is not how to stop thinking. But how to see thinking. To notice it as it happens, the way you’d notice a breeze on your cheek or the glint of light off a spoon.
Not as something to solve. But as something to witness.
What This Opens – The Jury and the Thought Machine
Imagine you’re a juror. You don’t speak. You don’t argue. You don’t seek out facts. You simply sit and receive.
Thoughts arrive like evidence: A memory flickers. A song starts in your head. A tightness in your chest whispers something old.
None of it is chosen. All of it is submitted.
In one session, I invited a group to become jurors in their own internal court. “You don’t need to decide if it’s good or bad,” I told them. “You don’t even have to believe it. Just receive it.”
First came the thoughts—wild, repetitive, familiar. Then the sensations—temperature, pressure, vibration. Then the labels: calm, anxious, profound.
But labels come after. They name what was wide. They reduce what was raw.
Try to stop the mind from thinking and it only thinks harder. It’s like trying to stop your kidneys from making pee.
So what if you didn’t resist it? What if you didn’t try to judge it?
What if awareness wasn’t the judge— but simply the witness?
What We Saw Together – When the Evidence Arrives
Someone said the noise in their head was like a bucket of coins—clattering, relentless. And then… silence. Not effort. Not a technique. Just a pause.
A recess in the courtroom.
Another person said they weren’t sure if they felt calm—or just not chaotic.
Someone else followed a melody that wasn’t there. No sound in the room. Just thought-as-music.
Another cried, not from sadness, but something unnamed. The body offered tears with no story.
One received a sentence—clear, uninvited, and somehow theirs to speak.
And one woman, eyes half-closed, said, “I’m just thinking random things. Is this still presence?”
It is.
Because presence doesn’t require silence. It only asks that we don’t abandon the room.
Thoughts arise. Sensations unfold. Labels follow.
But if you can see them as appearances—not truths— then you’re already in the field.
The jury never needs to deliberate. It just needs to stay.
What This Points Toward – You Were Never the One Thinking
Thoughts arise. That’s it.
You don’t make them. They show up like weather. You’re not the skywriter—you’re the sky.
Judging a thought doesn’t stop it. It just adds another thought.
You can’t outthink thinking. But you can witness it. And the witness? That’s not a thought.
Trying to stop the mind is just more mind. Seeing that—that—is the beginning.
Calm isn’t a thing. It’s the absence of labeling. It’s what’s left when we don’t try to name the wind.
Awareness doesn’t hand down verdicts. It just listens. Over time, that listening becomes love. And the thoughts? They don’t need to stop. They just need to be seen.
Something to Feel (or Not) – The Thought That Floated
Let yourself be exactly as you are.
A thought appears. It may have shape. It may dissolve. It may stay.
Notice it.
Then another. Then maybe a sensation. Then quiet.
Each one is known. Each one simply arrives. No effort. No choosing.
Just the happening. And the witness of the happening.
You’re not managing experience. You’re noticing it.
The thought was never held. And never needed to be.
The field remains. You are still here. Already the sky.
Closing Note
If something in this stirred you, you’re welcome to reply, reflect, or simply notice the next thought that arrives.
No need to hold it—just let it pass through.
More chapters to come, shaped by what shows up next.
Written live, drawn from real moments, carried by the current of awareness.
Continue the Journey:
← Chapter 1: You Call It Vision, I Call It Saturday
→ Chapter 3: [Word in Progress]
