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1.
Just watch everything happen. This is the same thing
as surrendering.
2.
The reason you can't do it is because you're afraid
of your own mind.
3.
To do it, you have to stop the continuous squinching
that makes you you.
4.
The self that gets lost in thoughts is also a thought.
5.
Everything of which you can be aware is a mental event,
including the "me" who thinks it's aware.
6.
That "me" is the thought that Ramana Maharshi says is
last to go, his "I-thought." His method aims at suffocating
that thought by placing all attention on it.
7.
One of thinking's main purposes is to say "this really
exists" and "that does not," but this distinction isn't
useful for meditation.
8.
Forget about the nature of reality. This is about phenomenology.
9.
Watching takes the fun out of thoughts. The pain, too.
10.
All thinking is motivated by an intention (intention
is not quite the right word, but the proper word does
not exist) to excite a feeling.
11.
Nothing you think can make you happy for very long.
12.
Being lost in thoughts is a form of masturbation.
13.
This instruction sums it up: don't daydream. Or
does it?
14.
And this one too: be aware. But it makes a difference
whether you are aware of something or of anything.
15.
You can play a lot of games with meditation that are
pure wastes of time.
16.
Gurdjieff's self-remembering is the same thing as Theravada's
mindfulness.
17.
Minds are incredibly prone to travel in ruts.
18.
The reason we have to do this stuff -- seek relief from
unhappiness, meditate, get enlightened -- is that nature
designed our minds for brains that were much less intelligent
than the ones we have.
19.
Small children hum like cats when they eat. The memory
is worth recovering.
Text
copyright 2000 Freddie Yam.
Illustration:
Detail from Le Bonheur de Vivre painted by Henri
Matisse in 1905-06.
Freddie
Yam is an avid collector of audiovisual recordings. Despite
the huge size of his collection, he finds himself replaying
a small part of it over and over to the exclusion of the
rest. He writes frequently for this website. |