Q7-20000809-Larry_Rosenberg-CIMC-discussion_on_practice-8142 Leandra Tejedor

Talk: 20000809-Larry_Rosenberg-CIMC-discussion_on_practice-8142 Leandra Tejedor.json Start_time: 00:41:23 Display_question: Being mindful of thinking is difficult for me, especially since I do so much of it for my job. Keyword_search: thinking, thought, energy, meditate, train, awareness, breath, mood, emotion, Garelick’s milk, skywriting, mindfulness, silence, creativity, city planner, writer, attentiveness, alertness Question_content: Questioner: It seems to me, in my own personal experience, that being mindful of thinking is really difficult. To really be mindful of things you recall, or sensations is relatively easy, and to try and be aware of thinking, while I am thinking, that’s basically impossible. Larry: Do you think it's impossible? Questioner: Right now, it seems like it is. Larry: Yes, I would use the word difficult would be more accurate. Impossible? Not at all. It goes something like this, it's different for each person, of course. In general, thought is very, very subtle, little package of energy, and it has immense power, which we give it. That's why it has the power. It's just a thought, it's just blah blah blah. Even the most refined, brilliant thought, it's just a thought, but we give it energy over ourselves, and we've been doing that for a long time. So, it's very powerfully, conditioned, and then you hear someone say well, just be mindful of thinking what it happens, and you try to do it, and you can't. So, what you're saying is accurate. Certainly. Break_line: I think anyone who meditates knows exactly what you're talking about. It's a bit like this, you know the image, a train of thought. In the culture we use that phrase. So, let's say you're on the platform, awareness is on the platform, the image may break down, but it might be a little bit of some help. So, a train comes in, a train of thought comes in, don't get on the train. Of course, typically what happens, and that's why you're saying it's difficult. The train comes in. and before we know it, we're heading someplace. We may not even be where we want to go, but there we are on the train. And then with practice, you wake up, suddenly you're 2 miles out of the station, and you jump off, like in the movies. I don't know if real people ever do it, but it seems like stunt people know how to do it. Break_line: Okay, and then you come back to this. With time the train pulls up, hi there, and you don't get on. Now, it's not impossible, it comes with practice. The reason…one reason it's so difficult is, thought is such a subtle form of energy, as you put it. It's correct. The body is much more coarse. And I don't mean that in a derogatory sense, just descriptively, more accessible, more available. The breath is, a mood is, an emotion, a thought. They're like that. And we've had so much practice giving them power, which then comes back on us. That little by little… Break_line: For example, two things can help you. At least two. One is, begin to understand the nature of thought. Just what is a thought when it happens, begin to see that thoughts are actually quite limited. It's like skywriting, drink Garelick’s milk, maybe. There are some people who get very passionate about it and start crying, Garelick’s milk. I love that milk. But most of us just watch it go through the sky, and we don't even finish it. We glance, and we go on to something else. Thoughts, alight. They're just stuff that goes through. They come and go. They're quite insubstantial. Now, they may not feel that way now, but their power is like they cast a spell over us. And that's what you're saying. I'm putting a different language out. That is, we turn to be aware of it, and suddenly we're enveloped in it. Isn't it something like that? Questioner: Well, it seems I can’t have awareness of thought. Larry: In other words, don't look for trouble. No. Okay. Questioner: But it seems somehow different than most other things. Because I can be aware of… Larry: But you see, let me extract a little bit of wisdom, from what you just said. It's wiser than you know. Let's say thoughts come through the mind, and those of you’ve practiced for a while, tell me if I'm just ranting, and raving. Let's say mindfulness is directed at thinking. and it just falls apart. Let's say if sentences start out, they're just a bunch. No sentence finishes. It's a bunch of broken words, sort of like every fourth word, and makes no sense because awareness touches it. And suddenly the mind is there's no thought. That's what you're getting at. Break_line: Okay, the reason that happens, thoughts are really not that substantial. That's what I've been trying to say. When they get burned up in that flame of attention. Now, when you aim awareness at a physical pain, awareness is an energy. The more you practice it, the more refined and subtle that energy becomes. And when awareness touches physical pain, doesn't that change too? At least sometimes? Questioner: It changes but it’s still there. Larry: Yes. Okay, that's all right, but let's not make it a fighting kind of thing. Whatever mindfulness touches, it affects it, mindfulness. If you try to use mindfulness to get a result, then it's not really mindfulness, to get back to what you were taught. If you're using mindfulness to get somewhere with it, it's no longer… a corner of the mind is too goal oriented. It's trying to get somewhere. So, you're not fully attentive. Okay, so thoughts when you direct awareness to them, fall away. Now, as you get really good at that, that's a direct highway into silence. The thoughts fall away. Fall away. And finally, you're looking at the source, of where thoughts come out of, and where they go back to. But that's the direction the practice is going in. Do you see what I'm getting at? Questioner: Yeah, I do. Larry: So, it's not a problem. But often people… thinking is so much authority has been given to thinking that unless we can understand, like, do you regret that you didn't get to know what the thought was trying to tell you? Questioner: Not any longer. Larry: Good, then you'll be on the express train. But there's some people who need to know. Well, but what was it trying to think? It's sort of like a compulsion to know. It's like being a yenta. You know what that means. But about your own mind, you've got to know all of your own business. He likes this, and she likes that. I missed that one. I like who? Who do I like? But after a while, that becomes, what's the point? It's just such a waste of energy. So, what you're saying now is a little different than when I was directing my… you're still not satisfied, though? Questioner: Well, there is another point… Larry: Oh okay. Questioner: Probably like a lot of people, I spend most of my time getting paid to think. Larry: Yes. Questioner: And I have to spend many hours a day thinking. I’m wondering if you think its better if I am mindful while I am thinking at that point, because I have to do it. Larry: No. You see, the practice is, whatever it is you're doing, to really do it. If you're filling out your taxes, I would hope that you would totally concentrate on the figures. If you're writing, I would hope that you really are writing. It's not that you, sort of have to have someone over here watching you write, or add up the figures. It's that there's undivided attention in it. Now, with practice, what does happen, in fact, you probably have had this, as writers definitely have this. There are moments when there's such an absorption in the writing that there is no ego. It feels as if the writing is coming out of you. It's writing itself. And those are some of the best creative moments. Well, they happen not only in artistic creativity, but suddenly a burst of brilliance where some thoughts start becoming very, very clear. The mind is quite smart, but I think you're holding yourself to an unnecessary standard, of sort of being mindful of this process, while it's happening. Questioner: In this process you were just describing, creativity. Would you consider that being mindful? Larry: But you see you're as awake. You see, to really write in the way in which I'm describing it, you are awake. You know that what is happening now is writing. It's a bit like this. Someone took one of our practice groups some years ago, who was a city planner, and he loved… he was like you, he found his home in Vipassana, all that, and then at the end of it, it was like a ten week, and he said, he was so sad. I said, what's the problem? It seemed like this practice has been helping you. And he said, well, yes, but now I'm a city planner. That's my work. And you keep saying it's not about the future. There's no future, there's no past. You know, so the teachings have to be… it's not double talk. It's that when you're if you're a city planner. When the time comes to plan, by all means, plan, but know that that's what you're doing. Break_line: The problem isn't that you can never think about a future. There'll be no envisioning of a future permitted in meditative circles, and there's no past. We're not allowed to remember what happened. That's over with. It's just now. A kind of new kind of thought fascism, a mind fascism. It's not so much that, it's that when let's say you're doing future, let's say you're envisioning for a reason. You know that that's what you're doing. You're not lost in what you're doing. When you're reflecting on something that happened in the past, you know that that's what you're doing. When you're writing, you know that you're writing. It's not that you're fully in that activity. There's alertness, there's attentiveness, and there's a giving over of your best to it. It's not that you're pulling back and detached from it. Does that make any sense? Break_line You are holding yourself, I think, to too hard a burden. I don't think it would be very, very hard for you, to do what you're… I mean, I understand you're taking it from the general instructions, but mindfulness is still there. And that's where, as you keep practicing, and let's say you're writing, and you've been practicing mindfulness over, and over, and over, and over again, it starts to become more natural, more of a reflex, and accompanies you without kind of intentionally deciding, I'm going to be mindful now. It's just there. Break_line: And so, let's say you run into something, some knot, some way in which you can't solve the problem, and I'm just taking a typical one that all of us run into, and there's anxiety, and fear. I don't know what the answer is to this. I can't seem to learn this, and suddenly this happens more, and more. The mindfulness will be a friend. It will come right in there and, you'll know, to look at in the body or however you're able to do it, what's happened. And then as it weakens, and falls away, you get back to what is it that you're doing? There's a simple teaching that goes back to ancient times, when you walk, walk. When you sit, sit. Never wobble. So when you're writing, write. Do you see what I'm getting at? I don't think so. I mean, it's the best I can do. Yeah. End_time: 00:52:45