Disturbing Images

So if we sit and watch the mind for long enough, then we get to see most, sort of stories told, if you like. So the mind is rich with stories, with thoughts, with feelings. Some of them we entertain and engage with, maybe even encourage. Others, we might resist in some way. There are the thoughts and images and sounds that we like, that bring us a sense of happiness and joy. And then there are those images and thoughts and perhaps sounds that make us feel uncomfortable in some way. They might make us feel anxious, or sad, or angry, or embarrassed or guilty. The truth is when we are watching the mind, we can't say in that moment, in the moment the thought arises, there is something incredibly innocent about it. It's only the application of our ideas retrospectively that we can in any way give it context. In the moment, it is simply a thought. It is nothing more than that. It's an expression of the mind. Of course, we immediately jump on it and try to make sense of it, or to give it a sense of purpose or something. But in the moment itself, it is just a thought. And that's really, really important when it comes to this idea of disturbing images. So disturbing images can encompass so many different things. They're the same, they might be things that leave us feeling very frightened or overly excited. We can be caught up in a sense of desire. We can encourage that. And often they seem in conflict somehow with our idea of what it means to sit down and get some head space. But then maybe, just maybe the way we've been thinking about that as an idea is, you know, as an exercise has not been entirely accurate because it's so easy to think that head space, you know, when we sit down and practice an exercise like this, that it is about simply calming the mind, getting some clarity. Well, yes it is, but it's about a lot more than that. It's about witnessing the mind as it is in this moment, not judging, not criticizing, no sense of bias, but just watching, learning to watch thoughts and feelings come and go. It's not our job to filter. So if you think about dreams at nighttime, the filter is off, it's completely off, which is why we may well, if we think about a nightmare, we might well experience very disturbing kinda images in the mind. But then we wake up, and it's kinda like oh, okay, it was just a dream. In a similar way, you know, when we experience them during the day, as soon as we wake up, and by wake up, I mean, kind of we are aware and conscious, oh look, it's just a thought, it's very similar kinda things, oh, okay, I was just thinking, okay, I'm back again. But instead we give it a...