As we begin to relate to the clouds of thought and emotion as just clouds, we no longer feel the need to stop them. They don’t go away, but there’s a vast difference between identifying with the clouds and identifying with the vast sky within which the clouds appear. Identifying with I-as-Awareness, rather than I-as-a-me, is like identifying with the sky, and from that awareness the clouds are never as substantial as they appear when we’re lost inside them. For example, anxiety may arise, but within the wider container of open awareness we can experience the anxiety but not be anxious. The narrow sense of I-as-anxious, which normally predominates, gives way to the wider sense of I-as-Awareness.

From Zen Heart: Simple Advice for Living with Mindfulness and Compassion by Ezra Bayda, pages 105–106