Notes and articles tagged with “thinking”
Filed under Notes on 15. June 2008 »
Reading an article on Steve Pavlina’s blog today got me thinking about what it is we are all looking for, and why we’re so confused about what it is and where to find it. In the article, Steve writes about how people get stuck in the socially conditioned thought pattern of thinking about what they want to avoid. It’s a fear-based survival tactic that gets you stuck in constantly needing to think about the future, desperately trying to secure your own comfort by having everything figured out beforehand.
Breaking this pattern of negativity by thinking about what you want can bring about incredible changes in your life. It’s that much hyped law of attraction at work. And it really does work, even if much of the literature on it uses the principle in the service of a slightly more subtle state of fear than the one it’s designed to overcome.
Usually when you read about this principle, that thinking about what you want brings about positive changes in your life, what you want is usually assumed to be some form of possession. It’s some sort of material end result, like 200 million dollars in the bank or a beautiful house.
But what is it that people want from having 200 million dollars in the bank or a beautiful home? Usually the fantasy ends there, with the possession. The thought is that when I have this or that, I’ll be able to relax. But if we keep going with it, what is it that you think you will get from having lots of money, or nice cars, or an exciting career etc.?
We want to feel good. Simple as that. And the reason we look for it in material possession and external situations is because that is where we’ve been told it can be found. We’ve been told that in order to feel good, we need to derive that feeling from something outside of ourselves. And even if we know that money can’t buy happiness, looking closer will reveal that there is still a deep seated belief that it will. That if you had lots of money, you’d be able to relax. You would feel good.
That socially conditioned pattern of thinking will probably not dissolve overnight, but the fog of illusion will begin to clear once you start questioning the validity of these beliefs.
One way of doing that is to simply focus on what you really want. Not the things that you really want, but what it is that you think they will do for you. Namely that you want to feel good. That is what you want, ultimately, and realizing this can short-circuit the whole mess of socially conditioned belief that what you want is some form of worldly attainment.
Keep bringing your attention back to the fact that all you want is to feel good. And don’t get trapped in thinking about this in terms of the future, of wanting to feel good in the future when some condition has been fulfilled, because that would contradict the whole thing. If you thought you had to arrive somewhere in the future in order to be able to feel good, you’re basically saying that you need to derive the feeling from something external.
The beauty is that nothing needs to change so that you can find what you’ve been looking for all along. In realizing that this is what you really want, you see that it’s always been present and available.
This is not to say that you stop wanting to have a nice house and the rest of it, but the difference is that you no longer expect it to make you feel good. Feeling good is already there, and then it flows into whatever it is you do on the external level. And only then will you be able to enjoy things, when you’re not looking to them for a sense of satisfaction and happiness.
Feel good first, and then go from there.
Filed under Notes on 2. August 2007 » [1]
A big part of the reason why we get lost in the world of form again and again, get caught up in the stream of thinking and occupy all our attention with the things and happenings of the world, is that we believe on some level that there is something in it of lasting value. If we didn’t think the world could save us, if we didn’t believe so deeply that there is permanent security to be found in the world of form, we would not give it so much of our attention.
For example; when there is something on the horizon in your life situation that you either want desperately to avoid or to acquire, in essence if there is a possibility of a future event with high stakes of some kind, a situation of gain or loss, the mind goes hyper with trying to do something about it. If there is something you want to avoid, the mind will either focus on it almost constantly, reasoning that remembering it gives you a certain level of control over the situation; or the mind will resort to boredom, which is little more than a tactic to cover up thoughts you want to avoid rising to the surface.
Behind the stream of compulsive thinking that goes on in most people’s minds, day in and day out, is a deep seated belief that the thinking is a way of staying in control. That if you were to stop, everything would collapse around you and all your problems would grow out of control. Also in this belief is that by maintaining the stream of thinking, you are somehow more likely to arrive, or make it. Because the conditioned mind-made self is based entirely on identification with form, which always comes down to thought forms, it thrives on thinking. On a day-to-day level, this is reflected in thought patterns that revolve around staying competitive. Thinking that you gain an advantage by thinking a lot, preparing everything in advance, trying to solve every possible future situation you are likely to encounter, etc. — this form identified entity, the ego, believes that your survival depends entirely on the world of form being arranged in a certain way. To this entity, the world of form is all there is. And in this way, a situation of potential gain and loss becomes a matter of life and death. This delusion is then reflected in everything you do as long as you are identified with the ego.
When you realize that who you are is not the mind-made sense of self, your sense of proportion changes dramatically. The world of form will start to seem relatively insignificant compared to the vastness of being, or whatever you wish to call it. The world of form becomes like a small piece of driftwood floating in the middle of the Atlantic ocean; beautiful and interesting, but relatively insignificant compared to the vastness of the open sea all around it.
With this realization, the mind goes quiet. Because when the world is seen in relation to the formless, nothing that happens in it can matter all that much. It is still honored and given some attention, but the fear that drove compulsive thinking and future-projection isn’t there anymore.
The challenge, then, is to maintain that perspective. And this is easier said than done, particularly when there are so many things competing for your attention. But with every realization, your level of awareness will rise and you will become more firmly rooted in that place where you see the world for what it is.
There are some useful pointers and practices that can be used to directly bring about this shift in perspective, and in particular I am fond of using what I’ve called the 95/5. Basically it is a sort of mantra that says the world of form is only ever 5% of your total awareness, and the 95% is formless, empty space. It’s not something that can be summed up with numbers, of course, but they can help to reset your sense of perspective.
As a reminder of this, the desktop wallpaper on my computer has a visual representation of the proportions, with a colored stripe taking up 5% of an otherwise black canvas. You can download it here if you want, in size 1440 by 900 pixels.
Filed under Notes on 7. June 2007 »
If we look at the thought patterns of the ego, most if not all of them are characterized by a tendency to want something other than what already is. Whenever the ego is not completely preoccupied with future-projection and fantasy, and actually takes a moment to stop and look at what is, the usual attitude is to think that “this should be different.” There may be a fleeting pause here and there of thinking that the situation is finally perfect, but the major flaw in how the ego works is that no situation or configuration of events can ever satisfy it. Nothing is ever enough, because the sense of lack is built into the structure of how the ego operates. Which means that whatever content is added, sooner or later there will be a need for more.
Saying yes to now, yes to what is, can be a powerful way of snapping out of this habitual attitude of “no.” Complete acceptance of what is signals the death of the ego, because the ego thrives on having something to resist. It feeds on complaining about what is, feeling offended by what is, being angry at what is, and simply being against what is whatever the cost.
However the idea of accepting what is can be misinterpreted, and the ego can, with great subtlety sometimes, twist it around for its own purposes in order to remain in control. There are two main aspects to this misinterpretation; to mistake the yes for a no in disguise, and to mistake what is for a story about what is.
The former has to do with equating acceptance with resignation, of saying “yes” with an attitude of resistance and underlying negativity. In this way the yes to now is seen as being defeatist, something along the lines of saying “oh all right then, I accept that I am fat and miserable. C’est la vie.” Which might look like acceptance on the surface, but in reality it comes from an attitude of negativity and resistance that has absolutely nothing to do with saying yes to what is.
Which leads to the other aspect, namely the mistake of thinking that you must say yes to a story. I remember Eckhart Tolle taking a hypothetical example of an unemployed actress working as a waitress. She had a story about how she had failed as an actress, and how she must now do something that she resents while being deprived of what she really wants. This is the story of a personal self and a certain configuration of concepts, and has nothing much to do with reality at all. So the mistake in this case is thinking “okay, I accept that I am a waitress because I failed at being an actress.” Which is not really accepting what is, because none of it is real and so has very little to do with what is. The only reality it has is as a current of noise running through the mind, which you can then accept as part of what is at this moment.
So now there’s the usual concern; if you give up resisting what is, will anything ever change? In the above example, will she now just be a waitress for the rest of her life because she said yes to what is?
This is yet another misconception, or rather just another aspect of the big misinterpretation of what it means to say yes to what is. The truth is that things can only really change when you accept what already is. Saying yes to now might seem passive, a resignation to leaving things stagnant, but in fact it is just the opposite.
To realize what the words are actually pointing to, it may be helpful to play around with them a little, even if only just to shake the old thought patterns loose to make room for a clearer interpretation. For example, contemplate the idea of dynamic acceptance of what is, describing an attitude of saying, “this is what is; now what can I do with it?”
This is also vulnerable to misinterpretation, because the ego can go into the pattern of seeking the next thing and projecting into the future, but at least it shakes things up a bit. When you think of it in this manner, you go from the habitual stance of being in resistance to what is to being aligned with it. Approaching the present moment with an attitude of asking “what can I do with this?” gets you beyond the old pitfall of thinking “this shouldn’t be as it is.”
It is important to keep in mind when practicing this that the focus is on the process and not the outcome, because otherwise the ego will jump right in there with future projection and attachment to results. Asking “what can I do with this?” is not about what you can get out of it, or what you can achieve through it, but what you can do with it.
Saying yes to what is is about aligning yourself to reality. You see what is, accept that it is already so, and then go from there.
Filed under Notes on 27. March 2007 »
I’m now going to present you with what will probably be perceived as a rather unusual pointer, a silly little meditation technique that sounds too simple to be effective. But as you know, a pointer doesn’t necessarily have to make sense to the thinking mind; it’s meant to trigger a deeper sense of knowing than rational thought can ever provide you with.
This pointer, or meditation technique, is to focus with vigilance on not saying anything, focusing intently on not speaking at all. Even going so far as to contemplate never uttering a single word ever again. Acting as if you were suddenly unable to speak.
The point of this exercise is not to stop speaking forever, but to entertain the possibility as a means of connecting to stillness. What happens when you do this is that the reactive entity in you, the ego, is made redundant in one of its main areas of function. In most people, most of the time, the act of speaking is heavily influenced by patterns of conditioned reaction, connected to the stream of compulsive thought that is so characteristic of the normal human state of consciousness.
When you focus on not speaking, you may even notice that your tongue and facial muscles suddenly become more relaxed. There is also a sense of stillness and silence, because the mind automatically quiets down and lets down its defenses. A large part of our conditioned thinking is verbal and subvocalized, in that we talk to ourselves using words and may even whisper or talk out loud without noticing. Because of this connection between mental noise and the act of speaking, contemplating the cessation of speaking is a powerful way of cutting off the reactive patterns of thinking.
So however silly it may sound, focusing intently on not saying anything can be a very practical meditation tool, and a useful pointer to stillness in the midst of everyday life.
Filed under Articles on 26. February 2007 » [2]
Even when compared to other first-world problems, addiction to entertainment may not seem all that serious. It isn’t as newsworthy as alcoholism and drug addiction, and certainly not as destructive on the face of it, but entertainment addiction is a ‘silent killer,’ so to speak. It is more or less socially acceptable, and even seen as a mark of success in its sneakier manifestations (e.g. stock tickers and multitasking), so it is possible to get into a deep pit of addiction to entertainment in modern society without yourself or anyone else even noticing
Filed under Notes on 17. February 2007 » [12]
I’ve been going through a bit of turmoil today, unease coming in seemingly from nowhere to slap me around a bit. And as this is an ongoing practice, with these old conditioned thoughts and beliefs coming up in waves again and again, I have certain methods that I use to process them. Writing in my journal, taking walks, reading books, and constantly observing and questioning the thoughts that go through the mind. And don’t think that it's nearly as elegant as it may sound; it is a backwards stumble in the dark, at best. But this is how it works, and usually after a certain amount of suffering I have a realization. Always the same, ultimately, but gradually the realization becomes deeper and deeper.
As I remember Wayne Dyer saying in one of his talks, that “when you squeeze an orange, you get orange juice. And when you are squeezed, whatever is in there is what comes out.” I’m sure he said it more elegantly, but the point is that when you are challenged, in other words when the world gives you a squeeze, whatever you have inside will come out. If you have repressed anger, it will come out in one form or the other. Maybe in a sudden flash of energy, or maybe in a slow, painful seepage (yummy metaphors here). In any case, whatever is left in you of pain and attachment to form will be beaten out of you by the challenges of the world. Or we could say that the world will keep pushing your buttons until it gets the combination right and everything blows up and disintegrates.
After hours of journaling, walking, reading, listening, etc., I finally came to a peaceful realization, during my walk, about a certain thing I had been clinging to. Generally speaking, it was the realization that I had to let go of future and thus to let go of attachment to thoughts, plans, and beliefs. To be at peace with not knowing what will happen, and to give myself up completely. Not minding what happens, as Krishnamurti put it. And as I said, this is nothing new. We’ve all read about letting go of future — this is all I ever write about, really. But it is one thing to grasp it on a conceptual level and quite another to have a deep realization, to know it as opposed to merely knowing about it. It’s amazing how resilient the mind is in clinging to its attachments and thoughts about the future, and until you really feel that you do not mind what happens there is an attachment somewhere whether you realize it or not.
Shortly after having had this realization, or rather after having entered the beginning of that realization — it is still going on slowly as I write this — I reached for my little pocket version of the Tao Te Ching and begun reading immediately where I opened it:
A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.
What a beautiful thing it is to have no fixed plans, and to be free of the illusion of future. Not in a way that you cannot do anything, or have plans on a superficial level, but rather seeing that whatever plans you may have are utterly unimportant compared to the reality of life itself. That whatever thoughts you have about any situation could not possibly be more right than life, which is a realization that brings with it a sense of humility and gratitude. Humility that then replaces the old arrogance of believing that your thoughts and perceptions are superior to reality itself.
And when you see this, there is no need for clinging to future anymore. No need for having to figure anything out, simply because you see that it is all illusion anyway. Every thought you have about the future is nonsense.
Isn’t that great?
Everyday Wonderland is a weblog on the subject of spiritual awakening, creativity, enthusiasm, inspiration, and generally everything having to do with the higher levels of human consciousness. The author is Helgi Páll Einarsson, 24 years old and currently living in Iceland. He likes books in the morning, making things, and taking long walks.