The practice of being fully present without identifying with thoughts, emotions, or mental narratives. You are not your thoughts—you're the awareness observing thoughts. This distinction between consciousness and mental content is subtle but transformative. Most people live entirely identified with thought-stream, never recognizing the space between stimulus and response where freedom lives.

We shouldn't escape our bodies to achieve enlightenment but become one with the body—using the inner energy field of the body as an anchor to the present moment. Physiology restricts mental state, so gaining control over mind requires controlling physiological state through practices like heart rate variability training. The mind-body split is a conceptual fiction; in practice they're inseparable aspects of unified system.

The pain body is a thought pattern that can take you over; you must be mindful to avoid it and cast consciousness on it to kill it. Ninety percent of thoughts are repetitive—most running thoughts are anxiety-producing mental chatter we're addicted to. Understanding how consciousness gets trapped in automatic patterns enables using awareness to break free from conditioned responses.

Enlightenment means rising above thought—liberating yourself from identification with thinking so you can use mind as tool rather than being used by it. The happiest people have transcendental understanding of life bigger than themselves, integrating the "I self" that looks outward with the "me self" that looks inward. Moving beyond ego identification to authentic being requires integrating thinking and being modes of consciousness.