Inner Silence

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I sit with the intention of inner silence and 'watch" the river of thoughts and feelings, perceptions of sounds around me flow by.  They come and go, appear and disappear in time - remarkably short bursts of time at first, then longer.  The awareness has a steady quality, watching it all, and the awareness has a tinge of timelessness, unchanging (at least relative to the everchanging mental current).  There is in it, a feeling of being or presence. 

Ah, that's what he is talking about.  Now I remember.. I was getting a little lost in all the description before the exercise...

In doing this type of exercise in the past, I had the insight: the brain produces thought in the same way the kidneys produce urine... and the thought stream I "watch" was an involuntary thing... something bigger than I. Maybe biological. 

But also, there is a part of awareness that is just awareness... just that... it is contentless in itself but it holds all the contents.  And this might also be what is meant by "presence".

Breaking the hypnotic hold of that stream...