More thinky-thoughts
as articulated by Jan Frazier in her book, When Fear Falls Away.
But first, the background. The most recent Isabella Catalog had an intriguing selection of books. I promptly went to Half.com and got myself a bunch, including two by Lisa Tucker, Once Upon A Day and Shout Down the Moon, both of which I found unputdownable. Read the first one in one fell swoop on Wendesday. Resenting being here at work today when I could be finishing the second one.
ANYWAY, another one of the books I bought is the first one mentioned up there. I was thinking about a couple of friends of mine when I bought it, but I wanted to read it first to see if giving them a copy felt right. It did.
Here are a couple of selections from the book. They're about thinking, and how much of what we think is real is really just what we're thinking and not necessarily real at all. Which she says way better than I do. It's also another way of understanding why meditation is helpful. There're two bits, it's gets a little lengthy, thus the cut. Oh - and the emphases are mine. Enjoy!
Watch the mind - but don't judge what you see it doing. Neither berate yourself nor congratulate yourself. Don't beat yourself up for what you "catch yourself" doing, even if it's for the umpteenth time. It isn't a tender-hearted, self-forgiving stance that leads me to urge this nonjudgmental approach. I'm not saying "love and accept yourself for all your warts." The point is, it's neither here nor there, how your mind judges what you do. It's the judging that's the problem: because it indicates you're taking too seriously the life of the mind. If you are hard on yourself (or praise yourself) for the activity in your head, you are giving your mind power over you. The point is to not invest any of it with substantiality. Any kind of judgment only feeds the ego with the illusion that this stuff is valuable. Starve the ego to death: its ongoing vitality is like a wall that keeps you from seeing clearly who you really are. Learning to laugh at the antics of the blustering, self-important ego will probably get you farther than all the heartfelt, earnest, self-flagellating striving in the world. Never forget that you have built that wall, just by participating in the human condition (which includes the mind, with its enormous power to delude, and all the conditioning that tells us untruths about who we are). You can destroy the wall - not brick by brick but all at once. This very moment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It becomes possible, if you work at it, to look at everything life hands you as subject to interpretation. I don’t mean neurotic navel-gazing, self-absorbed analysis that keeps you up late at night. What I mean is, everything that happens in our lives is filtered by the story we tell ourselves about it. Nothing - no relationship, no phone call, no disaster or piece of good fortune - has meaning inherent to it. It waits for us to talk to ourselves about it. Then the thing has fully happened, in some sense. The recognition of this plain fact is enormously freeing even if you don’t take it any farther.
It’s not that you need to get a better interpretation - a more upbeat one, one that puts a better spin on things. Even if you don’t try to change the story you tell yourself, it’s worth doing this - worth recognizing, as you move through your day, that each time some event makes a strong impression on you, that impression is arising in part from what you are telling yourself about that event. In fact, this isn’t at all about “revising” the story you tell yourself about your life experiences. It’s about slipping into the space between the event and the story. It’s about realizing that there really is a space between the two, finding it, and crawling in. A breathing space, you might say. You couldn’t even tell it was there, maybe: like the slit the bat slips into, when it seems to disappear into a non-space. From that perspective, in that “space,” it is possible to relax a little, and - without judgment of any sort (tricky, oh so tricky) - to watch your self interpret. Your “other” self, if you will.
The one you always supposed was your “real” self.
What do you think? Do you buy it, does it bug you, something else? I'm curious.
Also, a note to my friends~I'm taking the kids camping next week. We leave Sunday and return Wednesday. I'll 'see' you all late next week, k? Cheers~
But first, the background. The most recent Isabella Catalog had an intriguing selection of books. I promptly went to Half.com and got myself a bunch, including two by Lisa Tucker, Once Upon A Day and Shout Down the Moon, both of which I found unputdownable. Read the first one in one fell swoop on Wendesday. Resenting being here at work today when I could be finishing the second one.
ANYWAY, another one of the books I bought is the first one mentioned up there. I was thinking about a couple of friends of mine when I bought it, but I wanted to read it first to see if giving them a copy felt right. It did.
Here are a couple of selections from the book. They're about thinking, and how much of what we think is real is really just what we're thinking and not necessarily real at all. Which she says way better than I do. It's also another way of understanding why meditation is helpful. There're two bits, it's gets a little lengthy, thus the cut. Oh - and the emphases are mine. Enjoy!
Watch the mind - but don't judge what you see it doing. Neither berate yourself nor congratulate yourself. Don't beat yourself up for what you "catch yourself" doing, even if it's for the umpteenth time. It isn't a tender-hearted, self-forgiving stance that leads me to urge this nonjudgmental approach. I'm not saying "love and accept yourself for all your warts." The point is, it's neither here nor there, how your mind judges what you do. It's the judging that's the problem: because it indicates you're taking too seriously the life of the mind. If you are hard on yourself (or praise yourself) for the activity in your head, you are giving your mind power over you. The point is to not invest any of it with substantiality. Any kind of judgment only feeds the ego with the illusion that this stuff is valuable. Starve the ego to death: its ongoing vitality is like a wall that keeps you from seeing clearly who you really are. Learning to laugh at the antics of the blustering, self-important ego will probably get you farther than all the heartfelt, earnest, self-flagellating striving in the world. Never forget that you have built that wall, just by participating in the human condition (which includes the mind, with its enormous power to delude, and all the conditioning that tells us untruths about who we are). You can destroy the wall - not brick by brick but all at once. This very moment.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It becomes possible, if you work at it, to look at everything life hands you as subject to interpretation. I don’t mean neurotic navel-gazing, self-absorbed analysis that keeps you up late at night. What I mean is, everything that happens in our lives is filtered by the story we tell ourselves about it. Nothing - no relationship, no phone call, no disaster or piece of good fortune - has meaning inherent to it. It waits for us to talk to ourselves about it. Then the thing has fully happened, in some sense. The recognition of this plain fact is enormously freeing even if you don’t take it any farther.
It’s not that you need to get a better interpretation - a more upbeat one, one that puts a better spin on things. Even if you don’t try to change the story you tell yourself, it’s worth doing this - worth recognizing, as you move through your day, that each time some event makes a strong impression on you, that impression is arising in part from what you are telling yourself about that event. In fact, this isn’t at all about “revising” the story you tell yourself about your life experiences. It’s about slipping into the space between the event and the story. It’s about realizing that there really is a space between the two, finding it, and crawling in. A breathing space, you might say. You couldn’t even tell it was there, maybe: like the slit the bat slips into, when it seems to disappear into a non-space. From that perspective, in that “space,” it is possible to relax a little, and - without judgment of any sort (tricky, oh so tricky) - to watch your self interpret. Your “other” self, if you will.
The one you always supposed was your “real” self.
What do you think? Do you buy it, does it bug you, something else? I'm curious.
Also, a note to my friends~I'm taking the kids camping next week. We leave Sunday and return Wednesday. I'll 'see' you all late next week, k? Cheers~