Commentary Is Also Thought
El comentario también es pensamiento
A student asks about the habit of mentally narrating during meditation, which leads to a deeper exploration of the "I-thought," disidentification, and the nature of blissful experiences.
Commentary Is Also Thought
A student asks about the habit of mentally narrating during meditation, which leads to a deeper exploration of the "I-thought," disidentification, and the nature of blissful experiences.
I just wanted to share that last week you told us to try having a pause, a slight pause after we exhale. I find it very interesting because if I'm sitting up very straight, when I do that, there's actually a further release. It seems to me that the diaphragm will go into a sway of its own rhythm. But that is provided I'm really very upright. If I'm not, then it becomes more difficult, almost stressful. It feels like it pulls further inward. But when I get it right, it's a very nice swing. I just wanted to share that.
Great. It's a good exploration. So much gets controlled through controlling the breath, often unconsciously. Having a practice of exploring changes in breathing can be very powerful.
Watching thoughts vs. commenting on them
Can you clarify something? During the meditation just now, you mentioned feeling into our breath and also watching our thoughts. The watching-our-thoughts part: I noticed that I tend to have a habit of narrating to myself. "Okay, it's a thought. You drifted." It's a very commentary-like habit. So the instruction is just to watch the thought, meaning I should just be aware of it without the additional commentary. Is that right?
The commentary is also thought, so it's irrelevant, because otherwise you're trying to control thought. It would only be "watching thought" if you watched it without commenting. But the commenting is all thought too. Commentary is also thought, so watch the commentary then.
If you think the task is to watch thought, but thought must not include a certain kind of thought (the commenting kind), then you're not watching thought. You're trying to control thought.
I noticed I would tell myself, "No, no, no, just keep quiet." And then, "There you go again, you're talking to yourself again."
Even that. "There you are, talking to yourself" is another thought. Notice that thought is creating what is called the I-thought: a thought of an "I," which is just another thought. It's very different from what I was describing in the meditation as the true I.
The true I: is that the feeling of feeling really peaceful, a vibrating feeling sometimes?
The true I cannot be named
The true I can't be described. And saying "true I" is itself a misnomer, because there isn't a "true I" as an object. But it helps to point to something else.
It's important to note that thinking constructs a mental image, a mental I. And then there is this "true I," which has been called beingness, consciousness, awareness, atman, brahman. There are all these words for it. But if I just use words, it's going to be turned into another thought.
It's really difficult to point to it, but it can be recognized, it can be realized. In a conversation, we could tell that we're talking about, or talking from, the same thing. But it can't be named.
Bliss points to the change, not to the true I
Can I attempt to clarify further? I once experienced, for a very short while, something that felt extremely radiating, vibrating, and very happy. A mega-bliss kind of feeling. Is that part of our true I, or is it something else?
That is related to a change. When your thoughts produce commentary ("there you are naming a thought, here I am observing a thought"), that commentary is the I-thought. While it's happening, it feels like it is "I." That is the identified, collapsed, contracted sense.
Now, when you notice it and you say, "Oh, there's a commentary, I am commenting on another thought," there is still an identification. But then you could notice that that thought is also a thought, that that "I" is also a thought. Because when you see there is a commentary, something is knowing or noticing the thought-I. That is closer to the true I: that knowing, that recognizing.
What happens is there's a moment, and it could be really small, really fast, where you no longer believe yourself to be the thought-I. Then you may go back into the belief of the thought-I. But the moment you see it, it's a moment of disidentification. The thought isn't the problem. The problem is believing the thought. So if there's commentary and you're noticing that there's commentary, that's just noticing thought.
But what you're describing is different. Sometimes, spontaneously through grace or through practice, there can be a deeper shift in identification where suddenly we completely disidentify with a much deeper layer of thought, of mind. In that change, something opens up and is released. That is often blissful. Sometimes it's also scary; it can bring up terror. But often, past the terror is a very deep bliss that is also felt in the body, because there's a current, a release, an occurrence of energy.
But that points to the change more than to the true I. It points to an important shift. The trick is not to associate the true I with always being accompanied by those sensations. Because what can happen is that this disidentification becomes more permanent, and all that bliss, which can be very intense, settles and becomes quieter. That doesn't mean the true I has gone away.
I'm also saying this so that we don't chase the experiences, which can become very addictive.
I need to be mindful about that.
But it's also very important to have had that experience, even if only once, because it shows you, to a degree that you can no longer deny, the truth of this: that there is a possibility. The trick is how we get lost back again into thought.
I was a mystical experience junkie.
And then?
Then it stopped.