Did you see all the thoughts? a lot of thoughts, no? Could you see the difference between thoughts and non-thoughts. I take that as a no.
Yeah.
Or just the experience that's not thought. Like this isn't a thought it's an actual sensation or an experience. As opposed to a thought about something. You know.
He's saying can you hear me saying. That there's still a thought kind of rolling around in there.
Yeah actually my experience is that they don't stop that much. I mean you can get really concentrated while they.
They kind of subside.
But my experience is much more a question of; how much we how much we pay attention to them. How much we focus on them. And that at any given moment there is there's a lot of different kind of experience happening.
Thought being, thought being kind of one layer.
It's like in this room if you if you're like there's lots of different objects. You know and different things and you can look at different things and you could focus on them.
And when you do that like everything else sort of disappears and not quite disappears but it fades away.
Like well really looking at that thing.
And so you can see that our awareness. It sort of picks, it chooses like you can choose it whether it's conscious or not but it chooses what to focus on. That makes sense?
So I can look at this thing or that thing here.
And that kind of default human experience is pretty fixated on thought.
That's kind of the bulk, the bulk of our experience.
And it's a very you know, the Buddha said that with the mind we create the world. Meaning that, that our reality is sort of constructed of our thoughts.
And that we can never really know the truth, on a thought level. Thought is always removed from what's really happening.
It's like it's a commentary about it.
You know it's not it's not just what it is.
You know like I always like to mention how when the Buddha was enlightened he saw reality as it as it is.
Right.
Meaning that he didn't he didn't he no longer experienced what he thought about reality but just actually reality as it is.
And when we watch our thoughts you see that there's just a ton of commentary about you know this and I like this I don't like this. And it's it's quite consuming isn't it?
You know you know that when people say consumed by thought? That phrase? Anybody anyone ever experienced that. Anyone ever been consumed by thought? I'm curious did anyone experience any gaps during them during the meditation?
Like even if even if it's very brief.
Or are you kind of get a little space from it.
Yeah.
Space in between.
So what psychologically. The what they referred to the way you kind of know what it's like for most people is they call, they call it being overly identified with our thoughts.
So that's not, the problem isn't that there's just thoughts but that where we identify with them. Even we even say like I'm thinking this. Right? Like I'm thinking this I'm thinking that. And it's funny because that's how we that's how we say it in the English language but it's actually inaccurate.
It's an it's an inaccurate statement. Because you could if you were really just thinking them volitionally you could stop thinking them. Right?
If it was really like that we're like well I'm thinking this. It's OK well don't do that. And it's not quite it's not quite so simple right?
What's much more of an accurate description is that there are thoughts happening and we are paying attention to them. And we are listening to every one of them. And they seem so important.
Right.
We just, we love our thoughts don't we?
Sometimes. It's a love hate relationship at best. but they're almost like I don't know I don't know even if we hate them it's like but we're pretty compelled.
Pretty compelled by them.
It's I think one of the things that's most confusing. Is it sounds like you, right? Doesn't it sounds like you talking.
It sounds like your voice right.
A lot of times?
So that's I think part of what makes you go...
Yeah I'm thinking that, like I'm.
And so when we sit we actually watch the thoughts and we kind of see them but by observing them we actually create space between us and them.
And you see what I mean. Because if it's like if I can see it, then I'm sort of not it. You know I mean most of the time it's like what it's like.
I don't see it.
I'm like I'm in it.
You know I can't I can't see my own eyes, can't see my face, I'm in it.
But then you get some space and once you can go Oh look at those thoughts.
It's like wow so then you're not those thoughts.
If I can point to it and see it. As Ajahn Sumeto says, he says, then it's an object to me like it's an object I can see. Like he actually has this funny talk where I guess there was a rug there too. And he's like like I know I'm not this rug because I can see it. You know look like it's an object to me.
And so that's how we just observe them we don't you know you don't have to fight them but the more you see them. And the more that the you know the more the observer entity grows where you can see the thought as an object.
What's really quite beautiful about it is you start seeing like parts of your experience that aren't thought.
Right? It's like the more, it's like I can see the carpet really clearly and part of that is that I can see what's not the carpet. Like if it was just everywhere.
You know it's like they say that a phrase like water water to a fish, air to a bird. That's like you know fish just in the water.
Maybe that's why they hop out sometimes. You had a hand up back there.
What was the last part?
Yeah yeah yeah.
I think what ends up being important is that as we watch your thoughts, I think what you're talking what you're speaking to. Is they didn't say this like it's a level of calmness or equanimity as you watch them.
No it's, I don't think it is if it's for a second.
You know, I mean that's the thing about rabbit holes. Is they don't you know they call them rabbit holes because they don't just last a second.
But I think what you're describing is a kind of non reactivity to the thoughts. Where you can kind of see that, it's not like oh my God there's thoughts. I've got to get rid of these thoughts or I'm I've got I've got to not get attached to these thoughts. And it's you know because then that actually just creates a whole bunch of more thoughts, right?
So it's just like, I think there's a real kind of unfortunate misconception that in Buddhist practice a lot of times like thoughts get a really bad name like, thoughts are seen as the enemy and you've got to like either stop your thoughts or not get lost in thought.
And that kind of makes it all the more reactive.
You know I think it's much more helpful to just calmly admit.
Let's all just admit, we have thoughts. Lots and lots of thoughts.
You have them, I have them.
The people next to you have them. So we can stop freaking out about them. And being kind of like shocked or embarrased that as Buddhists we have thought. There's just a lot of thoughts.
But when you can look at it like that with some humility like yeah of course I've got thoughts. Then you can actually look at them and you can see them.
You don't have to be afraid of them.
You don't have to.
It doesn't have to be this like big deal. It is like I don't know.
There's just there's this rug here. And I'm just watching like what's it like for me to look at it, and it's kind of calm. Like I can observe it, for one thing, I'm not afraid of it.
I can proudly say I'm not afraid of this rug. So see practice has its benefits.
But like it's just there and I'm kind of free to just check it out.
It's kind of curious like oh that's a cool little design.
You know what I mean like I'm observing.
That's that's what we call observing.
Right.
And then we say in our practice we say well let's observe the mind or observe our thoughts but you find that a lot of times it's not.
It's not that calm it's not that equinamous. Right?
It's much more like all these thoughts. I got to here you know like all of these thoughts again. Why do I have so many thoughts? Like it's this whole, this whole contentious relationship.
Do you guys find that? And that makes it very hard to actually just observe them. You know observing is just observing. Like fighting is something else.
What if I was like oh this fucking rug.
Let me really look at it. It's like I miss it.
I wouldn't get it. I'd be pretty distracted.
Because we want to actually get to know them. You want to get to a point where it's just like. Oh yeah that thought. Like I remember especially on long retreats, you just have them like, they call them, like I don't know if Jack Kornfield made up this phrase or not, but he says it a lot. He calls it the top 10 tunes. If you sit for a while you just kind of watch like the top 10 thoughts. You know.
And I was like whoa, yeah there's that one again. And that one. And they cycle through a lot.
Right.
This is like a top top ten. Like radio station is just playing the same hits over and over and over.
And part of what happens, if you can if you just watch them.
This is a beautiful thing that can happen where you just get bored of them.
It's like a really it's a really sweet thing where you're just like, Yeah that thought again I just I don't care.
And then you can get interested in something when you see the repetitive nature of them. And the kind of certain pedestrian quality to them that you can, you can then get to a point we like well what we what else is here.
I got it.
There's a lot of thoughts. Clear on that.
What else is happening?
So what else is happening? What do you notice? physical sensation in the body?
Yeah.
.
Did you all hear him? He was talking about the earth element, you know there's a practice with the four elements and that mentioned the earth element, which is really just like solidity. All the solidity you can feel that, he, you know what you're resting on are just the solidity of the body. And he saying he's been grooving on that. Just kind of like it's like it's like the attention shifts to that experience of solidity. And he's been finding it enjoyable.
Finding the pleasure in that, in that solidity.
Anybody else?
Yes finding delight in these little simple things that normally you wouldn't notice. One doesn't notice when one's caught up in all these thoughts.
Someone back there... thoughts about work?
I thought that you should I wish you could get paid extra at work if you could tell them how.
Like if there's a way to log in, how much I have thought about it?
Like I laid in bed thinking about this crap for like two hours last night, can I get some overtime for that?
What's that?
Extra trippy, hold on to you're hat, about to get trippier.
Here it comes.
Yeah I mean a way to look at this practice in many ways is that, it's kind of about this process of making the unconscious, conscious.
You know we're going through life and there's all this stuff happening. There's all these mechanisms.
And most people like you don't really notice that. It's just doing its thing and you're being run by it. You're being driven by these forces that are unconscious. And this practice is really about stopping and just studying like hey what is happening right now? Like what is going on?
Like what.
What is this reality?
What is this mind?
Right.
And as we start to look at it and study it and just pay attention to it. Making like, the the actual experience of living of being, the object of meditation.
And so we just notice that there are other thoughts, there's feelings, emotions, sensations. And we kind of we start watching like what causes them, the patterns and you know as we see it we start to see through the illusion. We start to see the patterns, we start to see the ways we get caught.
You start to see like what what are the building blocks of reality.
And tonight you know we're just we're focusing on thoughts specifically. And what I find with thoughts.
For me that's been kind of the most maybe most liberating. Is realizing that that what's really going on, is that in this moment and really in every moment, I actually don't know what's going to happen.
I actually, I don't really know. I have all these thoughts that pretend to know. And there are all these like ideas and constructs but they're sort of all based on this like oh yeah you know I know that. I get that. Oh that? Yeah that's that. Right.
Oh that's that thing yeah.
And it's like my mind is trying to figure it out and what we're really sitting in, what we're really experiencing. Is something that in the spiritual world we often refer to as mystery. And that this experience of life right now in this moment, is incredibly mysterious.
You know like what the fuck is this?
And there's this other level where, we don't actually know what's going to happen.
Like trip on this right now. We want to get trippy. Like, right now, like you have no idea what's going to happen next.
Like you didn't know I was going to do that.
I didn't even know I was going to do that.
Like if we listen, we don't know what sound is going to arise next.
We don't know what we're going to feel next or experience or really like on this.
We're riding this wave of experience that's unfolding.
We don't really know where it came from, we don't know where we're going.
We don't know why we're here.
We don't we just mostly don't know.
And the trippy part is that it's actually a beautiful thing.
Our minds don't like it so much. And we like in our culture don't like it so much. We really value knowing. Right?
And it's too bad because it's sort of like forces us to create false hoods that make us feel like we know but we just make shit up.
Really. It's funny because the things we think now like as adults they seem may seem kind of legit.
Right?
But I remember being a little kid and I thought just as much. And I really didn't know shit. Like you know like have you.
You know what the funniest thing is to listen to and I've participated this but I've I've since heard it too. Little boys talking about sex.
It's hilarious.
We all feel.
I don't know what girls do but the men in the room you all remember. Like I remember like hanging out with my friends in the playground and like none of us have had sex like not even close. But we would like to talk about it with so much authority and argue like oh that's not how you do it you don't like this.
And I was like, I find it funny to think about that because I just remember, like none of us none of us would go.
I just don't know.
It's kind of a mystery.
I've never done it.
I don't really know.
But no one said that. Like everyone had some strong opinions.
And it's funny because it's like, it's just that the minds impulse to to take that position of knowing.
Like no, no, I know.
Yeah.
It's true. We still don't know.
And the thing about it, is I used that example because it's just like sort of so obvious and funny.
But yeah because it's still going on and. What the fuck am I doing up here?
I don't know what's going on.
But <mic feedback> see I don't even know that we're bringing down. I got excited start talking about sex, the volume went up.
So that's what she said.
All right.
No discipline whatsoever.
All these years of practice, no restraint.
So that's why I don't know why.
Anyways we're not comfortable with the mystery.
We're not comfortable sitting in the not knowing. And just, just sitting with this. Being like no that's fine.
I don't need to know.
Like I just don't know.
I actually, I had a girlfriend years ago that that really changed my life with this one statement.
She said to me she said you know you're always trying to figure out the mystery, and trying to solve the mystery.
But you know it's not it's not meant to be solved. It's just meant to be enjoyed.
And she was right.
I mean I remember when she said it it really hit me. Because I didn't realize it but I was always trying to figure it out.
And most of the thoughts were that kind.
It was like, I'm trying to figure it out, I'm trying to figure it out, I'm trying to figure it out.
And I remember this statement, this kind of this line coming to me in a meditation once. Where it said you know, life's not a riddle, it's a joke because there's nothing to figure out you just get it.
It's like a joke. It's just funny. You know or whatever it is but it's just it's not a puzzle. It's not something to figure out.
But when we're presented with something we don't know. When it's a mystery, that's often the response. Is to try to figure it out, to try to solve it, to try to get a grasp on it.
And so, the predicament if you will, that we're in. Is that we're trying to apprehend with the mind with this like thinking, deductive, discursive, reasoning, thought process. We're trying to figure out something that can't be figured out with the mind.
Your mind will never figure it out.
Never. It will just go round and round and round and round in circles because it's the wrong.
It's like it's the wrong tool for the job.
You see what I mean.
It's like I don't know I don't know.
It's like if you're trying to smell music or something. You know or trying to like listen to a sandwich. What's that? But imagine that if you came in I was like fuck me and I really trying to listen to the sandwich. And you know you'd be like dude, like you don't listen to it, you eat it.
It's just it's the wrong it's the wrong thing.
And so when faced with this, with this infinite mystery which is life. We we try to figure it out we're uncomfortable with it.
And I suggest to you, that that you're better off, we're better off just kind of be holding the mystery.
Just being in awe of it. Being humbled by it.
And just, just experiencing it. The way I don't know the way you do a sunset or a beautiful piece of music or what you know what I mean.
You don't sit there trying to figure out the sunset, there's nothing to figure out.
It's beautiful.
You just enjoy it.
And so sitting here right now just noticed like really like how much we don't know. I just...
I don't I don't even know what, I really don't know.
But it's ok.
I feel like there's this way that our, I don't know if it's our education system or just our minds but there is a kind of like shame in not knowing. There's almost this view like well maybe everybody else knows. And I don't know. There's a kind of like pretense of knowing. You notice that, like I don't know why I can think about all the time especially when I was young.
If someone like ask you something and you don't know, like you remember like especially when you're younger I don't know like I think of it there is so many times where if I was honest I would have said I don't know but it's like.
I start like making up some bullshit or.
Like yeah yeah I know that. It's you know and it's like why why why is it so hard just to be like I have no idea?
Exactly.
Mm hmm.
What's that? Not latching on to the thoughts.
I mean it's what we've been saying, like learning to, becuase see the issue isn't getting rid of them or not.
The issue is this paying attention to them or not.
I think it's an analogy I often use in this group is like you know that experience when you're somewhere in the TVs on but you're not watching it. And it's there and you can hear it you know it's there but you're not paying attention to it.
You're not consumed by it, and you don't care if something is on.
I don't know something about Donald Trump probably it's on there. But you doing something else and you just you don't really care.
So that's what I'm trying to say is I don't think it's actually useful to try to say well I'll go for 60000 to 50000 but more like.
It's like well how many of those thoughts are you engrossed in.
And Ajahn Chah the the the father this lineage.
He used to use this analogy of like, that the more you pay attention to them, the more you you you're interested in them.
It's like you're feeding them.
And he says if you don't if you if you kind of don't pay attention to them and don't give them that attention that interest, he says it's like the analogy is it's like a cat.
Like if you have a cat that comes around like in Thailand.
There's a lot of stray cat, and if you feed it, if you like leave food out they'll come right.
And he says if you if you want them if you want the cat to stop coming, you stop feeding it.
But he says you know if you do that, it won't stop right away.
It'll still come for a while, you'll stop giving it food but it'll keep coming and you think you have to be really patient and like really allow it to you know keep coming and not feeding it. And eventually it will get tired of that. Eventually it'll stop and it'll still show up but like more rarely and eventually it will be like.
All right forget this dude he's got he's not going to feed me.
But he said that's the thing he's like so when you when you kind of say OK I'm just not going to I'm not going there I'm not going to really pay attention to this.
You have to really be patient and wait because there will be this period where they will actually you know meow louder. Like they'll do more stuff to get your attention. They'll get they'll actually get wilder.
I know on retreats and for those of you that long retreats, have you noticed the thoughts actually get wilder, like they get like more vivid and more crazy and more interesting.
Like they get more seductive and you have to it's like it really takes this practice, of just like no. You know.
And but but I find that it's more useful to like focus on something else.
It's very hard to like not to do something.
You know it's more like well I'll actually do something else.
So that's why we shift our awareness to the breath. Or to the body or some something else other than the thought because by default we're all just paying attention to thought. Mostly.
That's kind of the default meditation practice that the whole world is in right.
They don't call it that but they're like you I just listen to my thoughts all day long.
And so what we're doing is saying well what if I put my attention somewhere else on something else.
So that's that's that's my suggestion.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah it's very well put.
When we can when we can sort of be with the mystery or surrender to the mystery.
One of the beauties of that is the mystery will offer up things you could never think of.
One of the problems with being lost in our own thoughts is it's very limited.
It's it's a reality that's only limited by what I can think of what this very limited mind can come up with.
I only got so many I got to say I think in a lot of the same shit I'm on a lot of reruns.
So a lot of reruns like I'm 46 now.
Like I've thought most of the things already. You know.
You know I'm sorry we got it we got it end. We're we're out of time I've got to I've got to I got to end at some point.
So so one one one thing I will leave you with is when you're exploring the mystery and allowing it.
Don't get distracted by your thoughts about it.
There is something much much much richer in it than what you can think of. And like the Buddha you can one day see reality as it really is.
And at times are there announcements,
Thanks you guys.
Thank you.
And we really appreciate your generosity. And it's really really no small thing. Just trip on that for a second, this whole place is literally run on Dana.
It runs on generosity.
That's that is how we pull in the money to pay the rent, keep the lights on in all these good things. So that in mind let's just bring your attention back to your body.
And just for a few seconds just allow the mystery, and just give yourself the gift of not knowing. May the merit generated by us coming together like this as a community as a sangha to, as Vinnie would say, to compare hallucinations and to just look at our minds and look at this reality we live in the look at these building blocks to look at look at these constructs.
And then to see past them and to see the mysterious nature of this reality beyond all the ideas and thoughts and theories and stories and support each other and allowing ourselves to be humbled by the mystery and to experience the beauty of not knowing. We dedicate and share this merit with beings everywhere.
May we all be free.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
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