The Addiction to Knowing What You Are
La adicción a saber lo que eres
A gentle exploration of our deep habit of defining ourselves through thought, and the freedom that opens when we stop.
The Addiction to Knowing What You Are
Settling in
So just be comfortable. There's no real need to stress any posture.
You can keep your eyes open or closed.
A different kind of practice
Usually these meditations that I've been doing are a bit different to the more popular meditations that are, in a sense, more foundational, which is training to observe the mind and pay attention to the breath.
Usually we try to keep some kind of grounding in sensual reality, and by that I mean the senses.
It's very common to anchor your attention on the breath, and so that practice is very popular.
In a sense, it's very foundational because it creates the ability for us to step out of thinking and distance ourselves from thinking, and even notice that we're thinking.
It's very common.
Most people don't realize that they're thinking. They believe that is reality.
So to have some sense that we are thinking all the time is a level of wakefulness.
The practice of sitting and paying attention to the mind strengthens that ability, and it also makes it more acutely aware to us how we are pulled into thinking.
And how we gravitate to thinking.
The approach I'm taking here, in a sense, assumes that a bit of that work has been done, but it's not required. It is definitely complementary.
But you could say the work that we're doing here in these meditations is a little different, in that we want to go a little deeper.
Looking at how the mind works
We want to see more clearly what actually is happening.
What is our mind doing?
How is it working?
And how and why are we so seduced by it?
You could say that waking up is to end an addiction.
It's a kind of obsession with thinking.
And it's not just the mind that we're obsessed with.
It's very specific.
It's to know what we are.
The addiction is to knowing what and who we are.
So just assume that this is true for you.
That you are addicted, obsessed, with knowing what you are.
Not to self-criticize, just to understand human nature.
It's very normal.
It's a very healthy stage.
But there's another possibility, which is to live not knowing who or what you are.
And if and when we move towards that, we'll experience one or both of two things: a sense of freedom, expansion, and well-being, and, or, fear, anxiety, anguish.
The gravitational pull of the mind
Notice how the mind has an immense gravitational pull.
Your attention will be pulled in over and over again.
The key to breaking that habit is to understand why we have it.
What are we getting from it?
What seduces us?
I would say that the mind seduces us with a promise.
Here you will find who and what you are, through me, the mind.
Through me is the door to a known sense of self.
And this begins a kind of inner battle between our true nature, which is unknowable, and the attraction to know what we are.
So if you pay attention to your mind, it's going to constantly offer to you what you're asking for.
And if you feel like it's not, if you feel like a victim of your mind, no. Suspect that you have a deeper agenda.
The mind is just fulfilling those wishes.
For better or for worse.
Looking at the narrative
If you notice that you're caught up in some thinking narrative, don't pull away, don't reject it, don't force yourself back to the breath, away from that.
Look more closely at what is going on.
Notice that this narrative is like a movie.
It's not just the dialogue.
It's a fully immersive virtual reality, infinite potential for storytelling.
At the core of every story, there is the character: I, me, mine.
The leap of faith
The biggest challenge is the leap of faith that there is another possibility of being, where there no longer is a concrete, known sense of self.
Where, in a sense, there is no inner world.
And that this is not just loss.
In losing the center, we could gain something much vaster.
We don't actually lose anything, because what goes away wasn't real.
What we find that we are has never gone away.
Observing the center
So keep looking at the mind.
See if you can notice the narratives, the stories, and that they all require a center, an I.
And that I, the real I, is just thinking about things.
In fact, the narrative, the story that the mind is building, is creating the sense of I.
And that I is a thought.
What is observing that sense of an I, of a center?
What is observing the character at the center of all stories?
The trap is to answer that by saying, I.
How can one experience oneself?
Finding and being troubled
Those who seek, let them seek.
When they find, they will be troubled.
Then they will enter the kingdom.
When we find, we are troubled, and then we enter the kingdom.
What is it?
And we will give up at all costs.
What is the force in us that does not want to find?
To find is to see your truth, to see reality.
And I would say it is to realize that we're not what we thought we are.
To realize is a loss, and with loss there is fear and pain.
But it is also the cage that we built, that we can be free from.
To know what you are is to build a cage, infinitely limited to the mind.
What we long for is that freedom.
And it is worth it.