I am a COMPLETE MESS
And maybe you are a complete mess, too.
The news, social media, and water cooler conversations are filled with an intense amount of division and discord. I can’t recall a time where there was more polarization of views than now. There is hatred being spewed daily and it feels like we are tearing ourselves apart.
What do I do with all this? I have strong opinions which causes strong feelings, and those feelings create more thinking and even stronger, more entrenched opinions. It’s a vicious cycle. On one hand, we have to think about what’s happening in our world. We can’t very well ignore it — especially when people are suffering in our homes and communities. Yet, the incessant thinking can threaten to overtake us — making us feel like we ARE our thoughts as we personalize them and let them define who we are.
We are not our thoughts. We are not our opinions. We are not our feelings.
Here’s a little experiment: Grab a pad and pencil. Sit quietly and make note of each and every thought that crosses your mind in FIVE minutes. Seriously. Just try it. Jot down every mundane, weird, narcissistic thought that enters your brain. If you’re like me, there’s some crazy-town in there. How many did you write? 5? 10? 50?
I believe that for most of us, our minds move so quickly that we barely notice our thoughts. Like travelers on our spinning planet, we ought to be aware that we are careening though space at 1,000 mph. Instead, we feel stationary. When we go far above the earth — and get perspective — we see the truth. We are not stationary at all. So our minds move constantly yet we never notice.
Another way of looking at this is through what Buddhists call our “monkey mind.” I never cared much for monkeys at the zoo and I don’t really care for monkey mind either. It swings from limb to limb clinging onto all sorts of twisted, sadistic branches. As soon as you think you’ve cornered it, off it goes into another direction.
As I sit zazen (the Zen meditative practice), I have moments when I realize what I am thinking (of course, then I’m thinking again — about not thinking!) Most of time, we don’t realize our thoughts — we just “think” them. The thought IS who are at that moment. It’s hard to separate the two. With experience in sitting, the thoughts become “other” and you are still….you. When that begins to happen it’s a liberating feeling.
So we have two problems: On one hand, the world is a complicated and often scary place that requires us to make decisions, have opinions, and get things done. On the other hand our thinking (which is necessary to living in society) can spiral out of control — often without our awareness — and we lose perspective of the correct function of our mind and who really are.
What’s the solution?
I don’t know, but I know that sitting is part of my solution.
I believe that part of what infects us has something to do with attachment. We are attached to our thinking — our need to see right and wrong, good and bad — and that causes us to needlessly suffer. Maybe what we need to do is use our thinking when it is necessary, and then put it down. Maybe we can learn to allow thinking to be a by-product of being human, but not let it define who we are. Maybe our thoughts are passing clouds — sometimes lovely, sometimes threatening — but clouds nonetheless, floating by periodically but aware that the sun always shines behind them.
