Monday, September 5, 2011

An Unexplored Assumption: there is such a thing called "thought"

I went for a walk and found out that there is no such thing as thought.

Those of us who are on this so-called path (next we'll unfind that!) carry an assumption that there is an actual something called a thought, that is different from something called awareness or presence.

I've looked and have seen that actually awareness is not missing when what-we-call-thoughts are arising. How could it be gone? If it wasn't there, how would we even register the thought?

So there's that. I'm here to go further and say that there is no such thing as a thought -- at least not in the way we've come to assume it.

Let's start really, really basically.

Show me a thought.

Can you show me a picture of one? Offer me a recording? A YouTube video? What does it feel like? Can I touch it? Hold it in my hand? Sit on it? Eat it? Can I eat a thought?

I've thought that my thoughts wanted to eat me alive in the past . . . have you?

Okay look . . .

next time you notice a thought, drop the name "thought" and look at it.

What is it?

Can you find the dividing line between it and you?

Just take a look.

This is radical for those of us who have been distinguishing between thoughts and a peaceful or quiet mind for so long, especially those of us who equate quiet mind with healthy, spiritually high, potentially enlightened . . . and who equate thought-filled mind with unconscious, un-present, unenlightened.

Keep looking at this assumption that there is something called a thought that exists.

Maybe there is an occurrence, but the occurrence that we would call thought cannot accurately be described as a separate object.

At least I can't find it as separate, especially when I don't have a name for it.

Something to play with . . .

enjoy. xx

2 comments:

  1. Actually, Carin, there are ways to record thoughts. They can show up as increased blood flow on fMRI scans, or as cascades of neural activity measured across the white matter in the brain. However, I completely agree that thoughts do not impinge on the peace that we are—in any way, even though they may trigger thoughts of impingement. Peace remains pure, and it remains the theater in which we experience all thoughts, good and bad.

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  2. Thanks, Jodi! That's cool that we can do those measurements! I'd get a kick out of seeing my own . . .

    Still, to continue with the deconstructing, we can say that we can see increased blood flow and cascades of neural activity, but we can't ever really capture the thought on its own.

    I like your theater analogy. Who brought the popcorn?

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