I sit by the window, watching the world outside, and I wonder—am I truly seeing, or am I just looking? Looking feels deliberate, shaped by intention, guided by an unseen force beneath the surface. My past, my expectations, my habitual inclinations—they all act like tinted glass, subtly altering what reaches me. I don’t just see what’s there; I see what I have been, what I have known, what I unconsciously expect.
Even when I attempt to cultivate natural awareness, there’s a paradox in the effort. The moment I try, I am already filtering, already directing. It’s as if the very act of looking for pure awareness muddies the water. Yet, there are moments—unbidden, unforced—when perception clears. When the world reveals itself without my interference.
This morning, the sunlight caught the moisture on the trees, and for a brief instant, I saw it as it was. Not as an object in relation to me, not as something to be named or analyzed, but simply as light and form. Some branches shimmered with golden reflections, others remained in shadow, and still others revealed their raw, earthy texture. It struck me then: awareness functions the same way. Too much looking, too much effort, and I see only my projections. Too little, and I miss the depth entirely. But in that space between, when looking softens into openness, there is clarity.
I watch the birds picking at the seed outside. For a moment, it feels as though they are still, and I am the one moving. It’s the same sensation as sitting on a train, looking out the window, and seeing another train beside me begin to shift. At first, it seems that the other train is moving—but then a subtle shift in awareness reveals that it is actually my own train that has started to glide forward. The mind does this constantly—constructing movement, direction, reality itself. But just as a flag appears to dance in the wind, when in truth it is the wind itself that moves, I see that it is not the world that shifts, but my awareness of it.
And then—Stillness. Silence and Spaciousness. The vast silence of seeing without grasping. The moment when effort ceases, and awareness simply is.
Spiritual Gravity 