We are so used to approaching everything in our experience through ‘thought’, that the idea of directly knowing anything without thinking, even for a few moments, may be confusing.

We constantly indulge in thinking- choosing, exploring, avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting thoughts. A constantly changing sequence of thoughts, sensations and feelings, is the experience of our life. Our ‘mind’ is constructed out of bits and pieces of randomly arising, transient perceptions.

If we sit silently, we become aware of our thoughts, flowing continuously as words, concepts, images, or vague impressions- as we automatically follow them, with our attention.

Observing the flow of these outer and inner perceptions- we simultaneously become aware, of our own ‘watching, listening, knowing and experiencing’ of these perceptions.

This is our simple ordinary awareness, noticing whatever is arising. Without it, we would register nothing in our experience.

This awareness, is a direct knowing without ‘thinking’. It takes the shape of our attention, and it does not require any thinking!

This awareness itself, is not a thought, it is a ‘direct’ knowing, of whatever it encounters, without any intermediaries. It is always present, as the background of all perceptions, and does not depend upon any object, which it perceives.

We can be absolutely aware, and know this awareness, without mental intrusion of a single thought, concept, or word! Notice, that we are always aware, and we know it, without constantly thinking, that “I am aware”.

It is absolutely essential, to distinguish between this ordinary awareness, and ‘thinking’, to recognize the inner silence and stillness.

The nature of perceptions is to always change, thoughts constantly move, but this movement does not oppose the inner silence and stillness of our being, which constantly remains in the background! 

The stillness remains, with and without all movements, the silence remains, with and without all sounds, and awareness remains, with and without any thoughts!

Simply listening to sounds, before our memory and ‘thinking’ intervene, to label and categorize them, there is a ‘direct’ knowing. A pure perception of the sounds, before our ‘thinking’ intrudes, to tell us what that sound might be.

This pure perception from awareness, is knowing without thinking, right before it is converted into a concept in memory!

Quickly, our memory supplies information and thinking takes over, to catalog this ‘new, fresh, never-before-had’ experience, instantly dumping it upon all previously accumulated ‘similar’ occurrences in our memory.

Even before we could realize, our new perception is tossed in a lump with stale old outdated, misguided and prejudiced concepts, stored in vague memory!

Thinking and memory are of course very useful for our practical lives. We depend upon them, to function ‘normally’ in this world. Freedom from over-dependence on ‘thinking’ should not be misunderstood, as abandoning all ‘thought’, we obviously cannot live as vegetables!

We need conceptual thought and memory, to learn anything at all, any technical information, any skill requires an application of systematic thought and memory. It is a valuable gift, that makes us human, and we will have a tough time surviving in this conventional world, without ever using thought. That is not the issue!

The problem only comes, when instead of using this process of conceptual ‘thinking’, intelligently, to naturally aid functioning in a manner required by each situation, we habitually overstretch ‘thinking’, such that we are operating from this stressful, often irrelevant mode in overdrive, all the time.

The right approach to using memory and concepts of our thinking mind, is to use them appropriately when needed, in service of a situation, for a smooth functioning. Not misusing them, having them constantly misfiring, crowding our inner mental space, whether needed or not!

When we face our perceptions through direct knowing without thinking-  we see, listen, feel and experience things, as they really are, opposed to as they ‘were’, or are ‘supposed’ to be.

We do not then, allow ‘concepts’ derived from memory, to intrude upon the facts of a current situation. Serving each situation as it arises, approaching life from an aware presence, we greet all arising perceptions directly, from our alert awareness- rather than through our preconceived ideas about whatever we meet.

Thinking, is then used like a useful tool, retrieved as and when required by a situation, then put back on the shelf. In the gaps, we live with instant direct knowing, through awareness. In this awareness, ‘thinking’ is summoned and banished, as and when required.

We trust our natural intelligence, our capacity for direct knowing through awareness, to determine when thinking is required, to serve the needs of any situation presenting itself.

We act from awareness, and occasionally employ ‘thinking’, to navigate in a new world constantly unfolding before us, where each fresh perception is welcomed in our open, aware, presence.

Direct knowing, without thinking, is living in constant meditation!