Listening to Thoughts
by Ajahn Sumedho
In opening the mind, or ”letting go”, we bring attention to one point on just watching, or being the silent witness who is aware of what comes and goes. With this vipassana (insight) meditation, we”re using the three characteristics of Anicca (change), dukkha (un-satisfactoriness), Anatta (not self) to observe mental and physical phenomena. We”re freeing the mind from blindly repressing, so if we become obsessed with any trivial thoughts or fears, or doubts, worries or anger, we don”t need to analyze it. We don”t have to figure out why we have it, but just make it fully conscious.
If you”re really frightened of something, consciously be frightened. Don”t just back away from it, but notice that tendency to try to get rid of it. Bring up fully what you”re frightened of, think it out quite deliberately, and listen to your thinking. This is not to analyze, but just to take fear to its absurd end, where it becomes so ridiculous you can start laughing at it. Listen to desire, the mad "I want this, I want that, I”ve got to have - I don”t know what I”ll do if I don”t have this, and I want that...". Sometimes the mind can just scream away, "I want this!" - and you can listen to that.
I was reading about confrontations, where you scream at each other and that kind of thing, say all the repressed things in your mind; this is a kind of catharsis, but it lacks wise reflection. It lacks the skill of listening to that screaming as a condition, rather than just as a kind of ”letting oneself go”, and saying what one really thinks. It lacks that steadiness of mind, which is willing to endure the most horrible thoughts. In this way, we”re not believing that those are personal problems, but instead taking fear and anger, mentally, to an absurd position, to where they”re just seen as a natural progression of thoughts. We”re deliberately thinking all the things we”re afraid of thinking, not just out of blindness, but actually watching and listening to them as conditions of the mind, rather than personal failures or problems.
So, in this practice now, we begin to let things go. You don”t have to go round looking for particular things, but when things which you feel obsessed with keep arising, bothering you, and you”re trying to get rid of them, then bring them up even more. Deliberately think them out and listen, like you”re listening to someone talking on the other side of the fence, some gossipy old fish-wife. "We did this, and we did that, and then we did this and then we did that..." and this old lady just goes rambling on! Now, practice just listening to it here as a voice, rather than judging it, saying, "No, no, I hope that”s not me, that”s not my true nature," or trying to shut her up and saying, "Oh, you old bag, I wish you”d go away!" We all have that, even I have that tendency. It”s just a condition of nature, isn”t it
It”s not a person. So, this nagging tendency in us - "I work so hard, nobody is ever grateful" - is a condition, not a person. Sometimes when you”re grumpy, nobody can do anything right - even when they”re doing it right, they”re doing it wrong! That”s another condition of the mind, it”s not a person. The grumpiness, the grumpy state of mind is known as a condition: Anicca - it changes; dukkha - it is not satisfactory; Anatta - it is not a person. There”s the fear of what others will think of you if you come in late: you”ve overslept, you come in, and then you start worrying about what everyone”s thinking of you for coming in late - "They think I”m lazy". Worrying about what others think is a condition of the mind. Or we”re always here on time, and somebody else comes in late, and we think, "They always come in late, can”t they ever be on time!" That also is another condition of t…
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