In meditation we cultivate the faculty of mindfulness, or awareness. This helps us to become more deeply aware of the patterns that our mind and emotions give rise to - including the patterns of responses that we experience as stress. We can become more aware, for example, of how we blow things out of proportion, so that we add to our woes. We might become aware of how we indulge in anxious thoughts, so that a neutral thought about something we have to do leads to worrying about what will happen if we don't do it, and how this leads in turn to us actively seeking out things to worry about. Once we are aware of these internal activities, we clearly are in a better position to do something about them. With awareness comes choice. Once we have become aware of a pattern of experience, we are able to choose to act otherwise. No awareness = no choice.
The basic choice when we are actually meditating is whether or not we will bring the mind back to the meditation support. That simple choice - to bring the mind back rather than to chase after thoughts - is the practice that will truly support our liberation.
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