NO THOUGHT, NO CONDITION
When we lack freedom from thought we lose ability to think freely and therefore seek truth. The object and the subject (our views) become conflated. We see things from a bias. It becomes difficult to take on challenges. A challenge is a change from what is known to us. A challenge creates a mental wall or block between what’s known to us and what is unknown to us. To take on a challenge is to reveal and make present this conflict. Our comfortability in this conflict is our capacity to ride our edge.
A challenge creates a new experience of any kind. To avoid challenges is to remain in a part of our mind that is familiar to us. We never put ourselves in the middle of the ring because we’re too scared we will take a blow to the head. The feeling of comfort is in jeopardy. We are incapable of allowing our emotions to work through us because we label them too quickly. As opposed to surrendering to them. You can’t understand what you don’t know without allowing yourself to experience what you don’t know. We become caught up in one emotion through the mind’s process of identification which prevents a natural occurrence of change. The change I’m speaking of is direct, subtle, almost instantaneous. It requires a release or give to the immediate experience, without a loss of attention. The ego’s instinct is to protect when it feels a threat. So how often do we allow the ego to deceive us? There can be a million tiny examples of this. Let’s look at one possibility from my experience. In the past I have thought and worried about being short or having a big nose. I thought I can’t get the girl of my dreams because of this. I want to fix this and I don’t know how. Now someone comes along and calls me short or says I have a big nose or says I suck at my job. Immediately I feel an emotion that triggers a threat. This idea I have of myself is now being confronted by someone outside of me. My brain processes his words so quickly my body immediately creates a threat response. My ego response is I become shy and turn inward or I get angry and express my emotion outward. In both situations there is an emotion working inside of me. That emotion is very real. But what created the emotion? We are a superficial society that tries to fix problems on a superficial level. If I remain superficial I will respond back to that person with anger, or internalize it by creating poor old stories about myself or hate towards the person ridiculing me. One story about myself leads to self pity. The other leads to hatred of others. What if this person that ridiculed me is a 6 years old? Does that change anything? Whether the person that criticized me is 6 years old or 35 years old – is superficial. The fundamental issue exists within my relationship to thought. And my thoughts are contributions to my identity. So the first issue is the awareness and quality of my thoughts. Your thoughts create your identity. The second issue is the quantity of my thoughts, in relation to the quantity of my mind in space, meaning no thought. When you learn something new or take on a new hobby, you are humbled and that sense of humbling opens your mind – you’ve created space. You become less ego-centered. Thought of self dissipates. When something is open something else can get in. But we’re often so protected by thought, we lose faith and therefore nothing new can get in. This book is interested in developing space in the mind, so that you become a forever learner. The better you operate within empty space, the quality of your thought will naturally improve. You will not be changing negative thought with positive thought, which is just a superficial change. You will create a fundamental change. Thought will originate from the faith that occurs in action. Faith is the acceptance and appreciation of the unknown. Many of us act only because we know what we will get. I go to college and get a special degree because I know that I will get a good job. I marry an Indian woman because I know my mother will be okay with that. So this type of thinking programs our mind to take actions based on known conditions. This creates attachments, which is what leads to suffering. I do this thing in exchange for that thing. And if I don’t get that thing I suffer. And this is how our mind begins to operate. Meditation breaks the conditioning. Mediation is the link or “media” to what is. In mediation there is no condition. There is no system. Just awareness.
Steve K.
