The Canvas

As I have meditated more and more, gone deeper into understanding myself, and learned to simply bear witness, certain observations have become increasingly clear.

The first realization was that thoughts, mental formations, emotions, and sensations are all ephemeral. They arise and pass away continuously.

Yet another observation gradually emerged. It was not merely that these experiences were impermanent, but that they were also objects of awareness.

By observing thoughts, sensations, emotions, and other mental formations exactly as they are—allowing them to be without reacting to them or making judgments about them, simply bearing witness—it became apparent that there was something illuminating these experiences.

There seemed to be a witness, a canvas, an awareness that illuminated them.

Since thoughts, the body, the mind, the intellect, emotions, and sensations all appeared as objects of awareness, they could not themselves be what was aware. From this, it became apparent that what I ordinarily took myself to be could not fundamentally be any of these. Even the ideas of "I" and "me" seemed to be concepts constructed by the mind.

This cannot truly be expressed through thoughts, emotions, sensations, or any other mental formation. Words, concepts, and metaphors can only point toward it; they cannot contain it. Even the metaphor of a canvas does not do justice to it. It is just another mental formation trying to explain something that cannot be explained.