The Addiction to Understanding
La adicción a comprender
A student describes an intense inner struggle: the mind constantly interprets and reinterprets what it hears, and something fights against those interpretations, creating stress and a feeling of being stuck.
The Addiction to Understanding
A student describes an intense inner struggle: the mind constantly interprets and reinterprets what it hears, and something fights against those interpretations, creating stress and a feeling of being stuck.
In the experience there's a lot of noise, a lot of fighting in a mental way. It keeps turning everything it holds into an idea. A topic comes in, and there's a movement of trying to understand and interpret, and then there's a fighting against this interpretation.
So there's a struggle, a fighting, trying to understand what's happening. Let me see if I'm following. You're saying the mind tries to interpret, and then something doesn't like the interpretation?
Yes. For example, when you say something, it starts to turn into something, and then something else doesn't like it turning into something. It causes a lot of stress because of all this fighting.
The mind doesn't identify; I do
If there's fighting, you're involved in it. You're talking about it in the third person, this "it." I understand that you can take a perspective where all of this is appearing, but there is something you are getting involved in. Could you refer to it as "I don't like this"? Otherwise we get confused.
It doesn't feel like me. I don't feel like I am involved, maybe unknowingly. It's quite clear: it's not me. What I'm talking about is mind identification. The mind identifies with what's being said, and then it's taken into an idea.
The mind doesn't identify. It is "I" that identifies. I identify with the mind. I identify with thoughts.
But there is a disagreement with what's being interpreted.
Let me see if I understand. There is a disagreement. You disagree with what the mind is interpreting.
I don't feel like it's me who disagrees.
Then what you're talking about is just more thoughts. There are thoughts about interpretation, there are thoughts of disagreement. If you're not identified with them, what's the problem?
The problem is the interpretation keeps taking things and turning them into something.
Thoughts only cause trouble when believed
It's only going to cause a problem if you are in some form believing or identifying.
If I'm identified, then why is there a disagreement with the identification?
I don't think you're disagreeing with the identification. Somewhere in the complexity of your thoughts, there are interpretations, opposing interpretations, disagreements, thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. But at some point, with some of it, you are attributing to those thoughts some form of reality, some form of possible truth. That's where the struggle and the conflict live.
If it's all seen as thought and it doesn't matter, there's no problem. But when something is becoming "true" and it's just thought, there will be some form of identification with it. There will be some form of "I" that chooses one thought over another. That's where identification gets activated.
For example, I could be imagining cutting my hand off. That could be a scary or crazy thought. But if I'm thinking of it because I'm writing a comedy script and it's part of a gore comedy skit, it's not serious or real or scary. However, if I believe in the reality of cutting my hand off, it's going to be difficult, scary, troubling.
The thoughts are interpretations. One thought says things are black, another says they're white, another says they're gray, another says they're neither. This is the mind. But if there's stress and struggle around this, it's because you are attributing some form of truth or reality to some of it. You're getting engaged in the truth of it, instead of seeing it as what in Buddhism they would call monkey mind: just more thoughts.
I thought that by saying the mind is interpreting, that would be enough.
It's not the mind that identifies. We identify with the mind.
For example, you say something in the meditation. Very quickly the mind turns it into an idea, customizes it, interprets what you just said. And I'm aware of the mind hearing what you're saying. Being aware of it means I don't take what the mind tells me you just said.
Disagreeing is still choosing a side
You could disagree with the interpretation. But if you disagree with the interpretation, that means you're choosing a side. You could simply observe and notice it as interpretation. But disagreeing has a connotation of "something else is true, and I know what that is."
I think this is the point where I really get stuck. The mind, in an instant, turns anything you say into something, and that feels uncomfortable.
That's not what's uncomfortable. What's uncomfortable is that you want it to stop. There's a desire for that to not happen, and there is somehow an attribution to the interpretation, as if it were something other than thought. Otherwise, it's just thought.
I get really stuck at this point.
It's very common. You're working on something that's naturally tricky.
It gets thicker, more intense. Just now in the meditation you said something, and the mind thinks, and then it feels sickening, the way the mind keeps turning it into something it understood. Or I understand, but I don't understand. So this is a fight.
The same experience could be funny
Depending on how you notice this, you can either fight with it and have a difficult experience, or it could be funny. What would be the difference? The experience is the same, the thoughts are the same. But if you're wanting them to stop, wanting them to be different, wanting something to not be what it is, then you're going to fight with it.
At some point there is an identification with what's coming up. There is an interest in something being different, in some thoughts happening and others not. Whereas you could see this whole thing, just see the thoughts, and it could be funny. "Look at my mind. Look at me being tempted to want to understand something I can't understand." That could be just noticing the habit of thoughts, and it could be funny. "This is happening nonstop. Wow." No emotional reaction, no stress, no struggle.
The struggle happens when you're wanting that to be different, wanting the mind to do something it's not doing, or wanting it to do what it's doing differently. The alternative is letting the mind do whatever it's doing. And the way we can do that is by seeing it's all just thought.
The thing is, it becomes a reaction if I'm into the identification. What you're saying and what I'm saying, what you're saying and that creates a reaction. Is that not the case?
You're getting involved in the struggle to interpret correctly, to know or not know.
I don't trust it. I don't even know anymore. Now it's even confused me about whether I understand what you're saying.
The release of not knowing
It's better to assume you don't understand, and that you don't need to.
No, I don't understand you. Okay.
And so we go to this not knowing. The not knowing is the mystery of what is here. All you can see is that what's appearing are thoughts. All of the thoughts that are appearing are only thoughts. There is no truth to it. The ultimate understanding is the realization that you cannot know. You cannot understand at that level.
Yes, yes.
There's a bit of a release. And that's actually the way: to let go of this really intense attempt to get something, to get somewhere. Some of us have an approach through a lot of intellectual or rational effort. Some of us approach it through other ways. But it's this trying to get something, trying to change what is happening.
Yes, it is the addiction to get something. That's what locks me in, and I keep dropping into it without knowing.
What I'm pointing to is: by seeing through the nature of what is, noticing what is actually appearing. And noticing is not through intellectual understanding.
When it appears intensely, it feels really stuck. I cannot get out. That's what it feels like.
You feel stuck.
Recognizing the two states
Not at this point, but when it is happening, when that addictive trying to figure it out is going on, that's intense, that feels very uncomfortable. And when that is not there, like now, it's calm, and it doesn't matter. I can just speak. I understand you, but I don't need to try and understand you, and I can still respond.
Because you're now seeing what was there. You're seeing what was there, and so it's released.
Yes, it is.
Whereas when you're in it, you're trying to figure it out, and it's more of the same. The same pattern you tend to get hooked into. We all have different ways in which we get caught; these are the different types of identification. The more you see this and there's this switch, it will become easier to go there over and over again, to just have that.
It's quite a struggle. But to notice the difference: when it's released, it's cool, it's calm. And when it's happening, it's intense.
Yes. And then you can just notice: "Oh, this is what happens when I am trying to understand from a thought level." Just notice it's all thought, thought, thought, and it doesn't need to change. You could probably have the same thoughts, remember them, repeat them, and they wouldn't affect you. The same thoughts that were appearing, if you had been able to write them down and now you read them, you'd think, "Oh, these were the thoughts that were happening. Not a problem."
Yes.
It's not about the content. It's not about the thoughts.
No. Thank you.
Thank you.