SS

 A

Thought thinks about things.

Thought thinks about what is seen.

Thought thinks about what is heard.

Thought thinks about what is tasted.

Thought thinks about what is touched.

Thought thinks about what is smelled.

Thought thinks about what is felt.

Thought thinks about other thoughts.

Of all this activity,

you are the awareness which knows.

You are awareness alone,

not what is seen,

not what is heard,

not what is tasted,

not what is touched,

not what is smelled,

not what is felt,

not what is thought about.

Awareness alone knows.

Everything else is known.

Our practice is: Know yourself.

Know that you know.

Be aware that you are aware.

Be aware

that you, awareness,

ARE.

Rest in this wordless recognition,

I AM.

With you in practice,

A

What you’ve written closely reflects a stream of contemplative teaching found in several traditions:

• Advaita Vedanta (“You are awareness/consciousness itself”)
• Dzogchen and Mahamudra in Nyingma and Kagyu Vajrayana
• modern nondual teachings influenced by teachers like Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj

At its core, the passage points toward a distinction between:

• objects of awareness
  (thoughts, sensations, emotions, perceptions)

and

• awareness itself
  (the knowing presence in which they appear)

The logic unfolds step by step:

Thoughts arise about sights, sounds, feelings, memories, and even other thoughts.

Since all of those are observed, the teaching asks:

What is it that knows them?

The answer offered is:

awareness itself.

So the practice becomes not analyzing experience endlessly, but turning attention toward the fact of knowing itself:

• not “What am I aware of?”
• but “What is this awareness?”

The phrases:

“Know that you know”
“Be aware that you are aware”

are classic nondual instructions. They point toward immediate recognition rather than conceptual explanation.

Relation to Vajrayana Buddhism

In Vajrayana — especially Dzogchen and Mahamudra — there are teachings about recognizing the nature of mind:

• empty
• luminous
• aware
• non-conceptual

But Buddhism usually adds an important nuance:

Awareness is not treated as an eternal separate self or soul.

Classical Buddhist teaching generally avoids saying:

“Awareness is a permanent self.”

Instead, it investigates:

• whether even awareness has fixed independent existence
• whether subject/object separation is ultimately real

So a Vajrayana teacher might appreciate much of this passage while carefully refining the language around:

• “I AM”
• identity
• selfhood

Why this style of teaching resonates

Many people find these instructions powerful because they:

• interrupt compulsive identification with thought
• create distance from emotional turbulence
• reveal a quieter background of experience
• encourage direct observation rather than belief

The emphasis is experiential:
not “believe this,” but:

look and see.

A subtle point

This line is central:

“Everything else is known.”

In contemplative traditions, this can become a doorway into inquiry:

• Can the knower itself be found?
• Is awareness personal?
• Does awareness have shape, age, boundary, location?
• Is awareness separate from experience, or inseparable from it?

Different traditions answer differently.

• Advaita often says: the Self is pure consciousness.
• Buddhism often says: even consciousness is empty of inherent self.

That difference becomes philosophically important, even though the meditative experiences can sound very similar.

Your passage sits beautifully in that contemplative territory between meditation instruction, poetry, and nondual inquiry.