1994-07_16 Breath Awareness Meditation As A Gateway To Living Wisdom - 5 - Q&A 2

Talk: 19940716-Larry_Rosenberg-IMSR-breath_awareness_as_a_gateway_to_living_wisdom_5-319.json Start_time: 00:18:51 Display_question: What is the difference between mindfulness and thinking? Keyword_search: mindful, mindfulness, thinking, pain, aware, meditation, object, pain, know, train, watch, listen, attentive, mirror, reflect, clear, substantial, think, preconceptual, now, present, moment, attached, precious, human, function, beautiful, wonderful, center, enslaved, compulsive, self-obsession, exhausting, competitive, non-creative, non-constructive, delusion Question_content: Questioner: I need help understanding the difference between mindfulness and thinking. All of a sudden, a very sharp pain. I'm aware, I’m mindful. Oh, I think, “Mindfulness is wonderful.” I’m mindful of thinking. Larry: Yes. Questioner: Or am I thinking I’m mindful. Larry: They're just taking turns. It's like a tennis match. One is meditation, one isn't. Sorry. What? Questioner: What is the object of mindfulness? Larry: Yeah. Yes. Do you get a sense of the difference between thinking and knowing that thinking is happening? Okay. We're all thinking. We didn't need to come here to learn how to do that. We're masters of it, right? Blah, blah, blah. It's always going on. But when there's a knowing of it, let's say a listening to it, a knowing that… Think of it this way: sometimes we use an image of a train of thought, like a train going through with different box, different cars. In this one, you don't get on the train. You watch the thoughts coming. You don't watch them with your eyes. Whatever image I use is going to be incomplete. You listen to it. You're attentive to it. And what happens is when you're mindful, you're mindful that the process of thinking is going on. But you haven't jumped on the train because then you're thinking again. Break_line: So that let's say when you're mindful it's like a mirror here, this clock comes in front of it, it just reflects what's there. Right? The mirror's job, the mirror is empty. That's its beauty. It's just clear, it's not for or against anything. It shows it; take it away and it shows you. Then put it back. And when this is gone, there's no trace on it, et cetera. But let's say this happens. This comes in front and there's just the reflection, the scene, mindful of the clock. And then the thought, “Wonderful, I was just mindful of that clock.” Now if you get lost in that thought, then you're just thinking. But if you hear the mind now congratulating itself on how I just did a moment of mindfulness, it's still mindful. No good. Break_line: Okay, let's keep going. Let's try. First of all, when you're really mindful of thoughts, I don't know if you've seen it, the thoughts just keep falling away, collapsing, because their thoughts are not substantial, they're not as substantial as we think they are, underlined think. And once you take a look at a thought, a thought is just a thought. Did you know that? That's all it is, it's a thought. But when there's no mindfulness, it's like a dream. We imbue the thought with a certain reality. So the thought actively helps us define what's going on. And then we think that's what's going on. Break_line: Okay, let's try another way. Is the difference between thinking and knowing that you're thinking clear? At least the words? Help me to help you then. Questioner: I want to learn more about what mindfulness is. Larry: Yes. Questioner: I understand following a thought. Larry: Following a thought, it's not thinking about the thought. Questioner: I understand. Thinking is following thoughts. How about staying mindful. What’s the difference between following and thinking? Or staying mindful. Larry: Mindfulness is just the awareness and it just shows, okay. If the clock comes in front of it, it shows the clock. If thinking comes in front of it, it shows thinking. If nothing comes in front of it, it shows nothing. If blue sky comes in front of it, it shows blue sky. Mindfulness is preconceptual. There's no thinking at all in mindfulness. None. That's maybe an important thing to know. That's its value. That's why the image of a clear mirror is often used. Its power is that it's preconceptual. It also only happens now. It can only happen in the present moment, mindfulness. And all it is doing is reflecting, like a good mirror does, what is in front of it. Break_line: If you aim it at the body… For example, could you pinch yourself right now in the hand? Really? Did you feel that? Do you feel it? You just did it. It was a second of mindfulness of the body. I think what happens when thought comes in and I know people are, it's not so easy to be mindful of thinking. And what happens is that we get caught a lot. Thoughts are so captivating and so powerful. And the day comes when the mindfulness, the mind becomes very quiet. And it's not so much that you're trying to catch thoughts with a butterfly net, but that the mind is quiet and like, the thoughts float through and get heard. You just hear them. It's not like you're trying to, but that's different than thinking. Break_line: When you're thinking, to some degree, you're aware of what you're doing. There's some consciousness in many of our actions, but in mindfulness of thinking, you're not actively engaged. You're not identified with the thinking process at all. The same with everything else, with the body. A little bit? Questioner: Maybe following that. If I’m in the moment and being mindful, what’s thought for? Larry: Do you have to fill out your income tax soon? Do you have to fill out your income tax soon? Questioner: Yes. Larry: Just do income tax mind. Think, really think. Many of us have jobs. Look, I have to think. There's a time to use think, thought. There is. And the problem isn't thought. Thought is an extraordinary, magnificent, beautiful thing. It's created this center. It's created, how could we have accomplished anything here this week without language, communication, thought, books, all that? It’s extraordinary. Break_line: The problem is we're enslaved to it so that we get caught in the thought, and so that thinking is doing us, and so much of our suffering comes about because we're attached to thinking. Rather than it's a very precious human function to be able to use thought clearly, intelligently, logically, and so forth. So it's knowing when you need it. More and more, look, for example, the mind does a lot of compulsive thinking. You must know that if you've been here for these days. “And when I get home on Monday, I'm going to tell that person. I'm never going to put up with all that. Who do they think they are? And then when I get home on Monday, I'm going to tell I'm going to tell that person off. He told me, and then she said, and then when we both met, they didn't. And then he told…” Over and over and over and over. Do you think that's a useful thing for a human being? Break_line: So if you watch your mind, listen to how thought is being used, an enormous amount of it is you're talking to yourself, and you're convincing yourself you're okay, you're not okay, you are okay. You're rehearsing for, it's a tremendous self-obsession, tremendous. Just nothing personal. Maybe it's just me. But what I found is I am tremendously obsessed with myself. Maybe you're free of that. Great. Okay. So there's a lot of thinking going on that's exhausting, repetitive, it's not creative, it's not constructive, and it's, in the extreme, it's delusion because the mind can make up stories about anything it wants. And then we believe in it and sometimes those stories are pretty far away from what's actually happening. And then there's a time to use thought. I don't know. What is your job? Questioner: Well, for instance, however, there are times when I do have to think… Larry: How do you think I got here? Don't you think I had to plan it out? You think I just parachuted in here. Okay. In other words, when it's time to plan, just plan. Questioner: Using my thoughts creatively, mindfully. Larry: Yes, that's exactly. So that let's say, you see, there's only now. Have you seen? It's really a fact. Even now it doesn't exist because where is it? There's only now. It's gone. In that sense, there's no past, no future, there's not even a present. It's quite mysterious but here we are. Break_line: So sometimes people will, oh yeah, there was a fellow in Cambridge at the end of it, we have these ten week introductions to the practice sometimes. And he obviously loved the practice. And then at the end of the ten weeks, we had a go around, and he was so sad, and I said, what's the problem? He said, like, “Well, I love this practice, but I don't know if I can keep doing it.” I said “Why?” And he said, “See, my job is I'm a city planner and I have to keep planning.” He thought that because we were saying, “Don't get caught up in the future, don't get lost in the past.” When the time comes to plan, the planning is happening in the present moment. That's the only moment it can happen in. Break_line: What we're talking is about when we're lost, we're not awake, and the mind is caught up in something way out there, and in the meantime, what's actually happening passes us right by. But if your job requires some planning, mine does, Michael's does. We talk and plan, and we met for next year to plan out other retreats and so forth. Then you do that wholeheartedly. See, that's where you're undivided 100%. Then you exhale whatever what was before it. If it was sitting, forget about sitting. And inhale planning. So you fully do planning, and you ought to be able to do it better. If it's income tax, of course, you have to think, add up the figures correctly, or at least in your favor or something like that. Anyway, please. End_time: 00:29:43