When Thoughts Lose Their Grip
Cuando los pensamientos pierden su agarre
A student describes how fearful thoughts arise, get criticized by other thoughts, and then dissolve once their nature is clearly seen.
When Thoughts Lose Their Grip
A student describes how fearful thoughts arise, get criticized by other thoughts, and then dissolve once their nature is clearly seen.
I notice a stream of thoughts coming out of fear. Attention gets drawn into them, and then other thoughts come in, criticizing how nonsensical the fearful thoughts are, since they don't have any real basis and are total fabrication. After seeing this, I noticed that the judgmental thoughts themselves are based on a position: they come from the belief in this person situated in time and space, from the story of my life. Suddenly, because of this seeing of what the nature of these thoughts actually is, all the thoughts simply disappear. That has been my experience of seeing thought.
Yes. The more we see thought as thought, the more it will dissolve.
Criticism that is attuned with reality
If the thought that comes as a criticism of the other thought, the fear that comes from the thoughts, is in some sense attuned with reality, then it will be clear what direction is useful. And in a sense, the decision will happen on its own. It is like learning to ride a bicycle: at first there is a lot of figuring out, a lot of active exploring. Then the movement just becomes so natural that there is no longer any thought around it. We are doing the same thing here. The problem is that we believe we need to be thinking about everything all the time in order for the right action to happen.
I actually do get to these points where I see the thoughts, see where they are coming from, and once that is seen, immediately they just don't have any grip on the attention.
Yes, that's good.