Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today we're going to explore what is the essence of who we are. So when we're practicing mindfulness, in time, we begin to see that we're not our thoughts, we're not our emotions and that who we are really is beyond our roles in life, our name, our mental labels and judgments, even our personal history. We begin to see that the essence of who we are is awareness itself. Now it's difficult to talk about awareness because we're attempting to talk about something that cannot really be described.

It cannot really be defined as a concept. So this is where it gets a little bit tricky. And to be honest, the more we try to talk about awareness often, you know, the more we try to describe it, the further we get away from the experiencing of it. And it's for this reason that many teachers have often spoken about what awareness is not rather than what it is. But instead of making awareness a concept or an idea for the mind to grasp, these teachers would simply encourage us to find out ourselves what the experience of it is.

And this is where meditation is such a powerful practice of direct experience. So, but one of the really beautiful things about abiding in awareness is the way it feels, the way that experience feels. It feels so freeing and so peaceful because it's actually beyond the thinking mind, beyond the concepts, beyond our personal story, our problems, our self judgements, our conditioning. It's actually letting go of all of that. And that's why it feels so wonderful because it's such a relief to let go of all of that and just dwell as awareness itself.

And the other really special thing about this is because awareness is the essence of who we are, it's always with us. We don't have to produce it. We don't have to create it. All we have to do is learn to put down all the other stuff and then there's nothing but that, there's nothing but awareness. That's why in meditation, we're often learning to let go and surrender because when we do that, we naturally land in that place of awareness, that place within us that's that place of peace, that's the essence of who we are.

So with that in mind, let's settle in for today's meditation. And as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.