Thoughts Without a Thinker

Hola mi gente,
So, I’m getting my groove back, using my creativity. Things are looking up. Next step: get my own place!

Entering the Stream

Stream of Consciousness, Chenille stems, styrofoam, Julia Buntaine.

Thinking to get at once all the gold the goose could give, he killed it and opened it only to find -- nothing.
 -- Aesop (620–560 BC) The Goose with the Golden Eggs

I once met a lovely woman, highly intelligent, beautiful writer. In her early 40s, she was at her creative and physical peak. I used to joke that she looked as if she lived on a Stairmaster. In short, here was a woman I felt I could enjoy knowing better, maybe even --who knows -- explore the “C” word with her. She had one major drawback, however... 

She thought too much.

She was ruled by her thoughts and she wasn’t satisfied with torturing herself with her thinking, she insisted I join in also. I’ll give you an example, we would plan a meet-up (she lived in Boston and I live in NYC) and initially we would talk excitedly about what we would do together, but as the date would draw nearer, thoughts stemming from her insecurities would predominate our conversations. At first I was more than happy to help her dispel some of these thoughts. I mean, she would have one thought (“Eddie doesn’t like me, so he won’t come”) and then another thought connected to that thought would appear (“Eddie is just coming because he wants sex”), which would be connected to another thought (“I’m such a loser”). This would go on until her whole thought process and beliefs around our meet-up would be so totally screwed up, so totally disassociated from reality, that I would have a hard time addressing all of it. 

Eventually, I would have to tell her that I didn’t need to hear all her thought processes and she was so offended that she broke off meeting with me. She was so hurt because, according to her, her thoughts were her and I shouldn’t have been so insensitive to her thoughts (or something along those lines). I don’t “do” therapy in my personal life, though friends constantly ask me questions that essentially are invites to “analyze” them. I don’t even adhere to that type of theoretical orientation. LOL

You might judge my friend’s thinking, but I see people do that kind of thing all the time. I mean, we all do it to a degree. We like to call it “analyzing,” but it resembles mental masturbation. We create scenarios out of a tangled web of thought constellations and ingrained belief systems we take as ultimate truth. I will add that my friend’s thinking brought her a lot of suffering in the form of clinical depression.

We live in a society in which we’re encouraged to live from the “neck up” at the expense of our bodies and the rest of reality -- we live disembodied lives. I see it all the time in my work. Ask someone how he or she feels and they will quickly proceed to tell you how they’re thinking about their feeling.

I often tell my women friends that they shouldn’t think around me because it makes my dick hard. I’m kidding! It doesn’t work, telling someone not to think, makes them think even more intensely.

Let me be clear: thinking is not bad in itself. In fact, thinking is an essential tool for our well-being and survival. Indeed, our distinguishing feature as a species is the ability to create complex symbols, agree on their meaning, and use them to encode our knowledge. The ability to think allows us to compute, reason, and create, and, most importantly, to share our understanding with each other in the form of speech or writing. We can even record our thinking (on blogs, no less) for others!

The issue here is that as a species we have grown to value thinking to the exclusion of other aspects of our being. We have become more identified with our thoughts and the more we become lost in our personal soap operas, the more disconnected we have become from what we have in common with other human beings and our ecology. We have surrendered our sense of self to our thinking mind, becoming “lost in thought.”

I should know, because I too was addicted to the non-stop ruminations of my thought-stream. After years of meditation practice, the most significant change in my life has been my relationship to my mind. We’re still together, my monkey and I, but we’re no longer in a codependent relationship. Slowly, but surely I am gaining my liberation from the tyranny of thinking.

The change was precipitated by the acknowledgment that my mind had a thinking problem. I was a heavy thinker, often engaging in about 70,000 to 150,000 thoughts a day! I got up in the morning and -- bam! -- I was thinking 2-3 thoughts per minute, continuing through the day until night when I thought myself to sleep.

I tried everything from analysis (which made me more attached to my thinking) to screaming and flailing about, which only temporarily diminished the flow of thinking. Eventually, I would turn to drugs in an attempt to “blow my mind” by short-circuiting the neural wiring and I have to say -- one time I even forgot who I was (literally).

Later, I would practice a form of meditation in which the goal was not to stop thinking, but rather expose the mind to itself. Before my meditation practice I was completely absorbed on the content of thoughts, how to manipulate them and extract meaning from them. That is what we’re taught and graded on in school and it is what our culture values.

But no one had taught me how to look at my thoughts. Ordinarily, we go through life with what psychologists call a pre-conscious stream of thoughts coursing through our minds. Barely noticeable, this thought stream exerts an enormous amount of influence in our lives. We do this mindlessly without awareness. In fact, modern science shows that our thoughts aren’t the dominant player in our lives. Brain research finds that most of our interpretations of the world as well as our decision-making process takes place on what evolutionary psychologists call the “sub-personal” level, without a rational thinking self directing the process.

When I first sat down to meditate, I was almost overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the thought stream. Eventually, I learned the simple task of watching the stream without making judgments, or running around to analyze them. A resentment thought pops up, I acknowledge it gently and then let it go. Sure enough, some time will pass and another thought will present itself and I do the same thing -- I see it, acknowledge it and let it go. Eventually, this has a stabilizing effect -- you’re not stuck on the thoughts that seem to come from nowhere. You are not stuck on the content of your thoughts but engaged in the process of the thought-stream.

Eventually, with lots of practice, I was able to observe the “gap” between the thoughts. This is pure consciousness, pure awareness -- the most powerful healing force I’ve ever encountered... but that’s for another blog for another time.

It may not sound like a lot, but it’s a huge thing for me to say that the main difference between my experiences today and those of 20-odd years ago is that I catch myself quicker these days. Essentially, today I’m less prone to be carried away by every thought that comes along -- I don’t get caught up in my delusional personal soap opera as often as I used to. This is especially true in the area of resentments and personal relationships. The thought-stream is not ruling my responses or filtering my reality as much as it once did.

Today a thought can arise and I can say, “thanks for sharing, but I’m not engaging that today, I’m too busy doing something more important.”

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization… 

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, please consider helping me out by sharing it, liking me on Facebook, following me on Twitter, or even throwing me some money on GoFundMe HERE or via PayPal HERE so I can keep calling it like I see it.

Nintendo and Meditation

Hola Everybody,
I’m selling a Trek bike -- hardly used -- at a bargain. Email me or comment for more information/ details. I’m off to a job interview… wish me luck.

Many people ask me to post on meditation. I’ve run into so many people who say, “I tried it, but I can’t do it.” But this is like saying you tried seeing... if your vision works, then it follows that you should be able to see, no?

Below, you’ll find a short article by a former teacher who explains in clear and elegant language, the notion of concentration and the development of mindfulness. Enjoy.

Nintendo Dharma

Goldstein, J. (1993). Insight meditation: The practice of freedom. Boston: Shambhala.

You may have noticed how easy it is to stay present when you engage in an activity you enjoy, like playing some sport, watching a movie, reading a book, or even playing Nintendo. Why can we be so concentrated in these activities, and yet find ourselves distracted and restless when we meditate? Surprisingly, this simple question can lead us to a profound understanding of suffering and freedom.

What we call mind is the naturally pure knowing faculty -- invisible, clear, and lucid. In some Tibetan texts it is called “the cognizing power of emptiness.” But mind includes more than just knowing, because in each moment of experience different qualities, or mental factors, arise with it and color the knowing in various ways. For example, greed, hatred, love, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, among many others, are all mental factors arising and passing in different moments, each functioning in its own way.

When we engage in various activities, different mental factors are at work. In Nintendo, we need to be right there with the game or we lose. The mind needs to be steady and one-pointed, with the factor of concentration quite strong. In addition to concentration, another quality of mind plays a critical role -- the mental factor of perception. Perception recognizes, names, and remembers appearances by picking out their distinguishing marks. Through the power of perception we recognize each appearing object of experience: woman, man, pine tree, Abraham Lincoln, computer, car, and innumerable others. Concentration and perception keep us present and absorbed in whatever life-game is happening.

Meditation practice is different. In order to develop insight and wisdom, we need to add the factor of mindfulness to the mental equation of concentration and perception. Mindfulness goes beyond the simple recognition of what is happening. It goes beyond keeping the mind steady. Through its strong power of observation, mindfulness uncovers the characteristic nature of experience itself.

Absorption in a movie or in Nintendo does not reveal the momentariness of phenomena. We do not see the impermanence and insubstantiality of all things and events, nor do we notice the empty nature of awareness itself. Perception and concentration arise in every moment; even when the mind gets lost in thought, we still recognize what it is we are thinking. But only mindfulness reveals that we are thinking. This is a critical difference. Perception by itself does not lead to insight into impermanence and selflessness, because it engages us in the content and story of what appears. Mindfulness emerges from the story and notices the moment-to-moment arising and passing of sense impressions, thoughts, and consciousness itself.

If we understand these three important factors of mind clearly -- concentration, perception, and mindfulness -- then their coming into balance becomes the field of freedom.

* * *

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Visualizing Happiness

Hola mi gente,
If you can pleas contribute to my fundraising campaign. I want to create an independent initiative that will make it possible to amplify the voices that are often missing from the process of creating social policy. My goal is to get a significant portion of the funding from people rather than corporations or the government they own. Even 100 people contributing $25 will bring me that much closer to my goal.

I’m thinking small right now, but to paraphrase, never underestimate the power of a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens to change the world. You can find out more and donate here.

Sometimes I write stuff I think might inspire others. Today I am posting this in order to remind myself as well… Maybe I need to visualize the gig that heart’s passion desires. LOL

The Happiness Cross-Training Machine

Genuine happiness is a possibility for everyone. But before I could realize that possibility I had to drop the misconception that I was that unique. Once I did that, I found out that I could be happy too! Now, ain't that some shit?!

Furthermore, I discovered that genuine happiness was not as hard as I thought it was. In fact, all it takes is 10-20 minutes a day of some simple exercises and poof! All that misery is out. This is true, for less than the time it takes you to watch some bullshit reality show, you can be happy. It is that simple. Oh yeah, I also discovered that there was a hidden part of me that would have rather died than be happy because what the fuck would I do if I were truly happy, right?! I mean, I had invested a lot of time and energy into being a miserable motherfucker, that shit ain’t easy to do, you know.

Of course, I’m exaggerating (somewhat), but believe me, there's a way, it's not hard, and it's possible. We can create (actually, we already do) the world you want. It's just a matter of understanding how the mind works and changing the current software (mind) you are using and your fears turn into self-confidence, self-loathing becomes self-appreciation, and so on.

People do this all the time, what makes you think we’re that different? Actually, those of us stuck in the shit want desperately to cling to this notion of what I have heard called “terminal uniqueness.” It's terminal because it kills. It kills as surely cancer kills. I'm serious as a heart attack (LOL! See what I did there?).

There is another world right before our eyes many of us are not even aware of and all we have to do is wake up to that possibility. I'll leave you with the following story… 

I took a yoga class once as part of an elective in my undergraduate work. The instructor was this zany New Age, energy freak type -- at least that was my impression of her. Anyway, we connected somehow and one day while looking directly at me (or at least I thought), she offered to do a mental exercise with the class. She started with stating the fact that she owned a beautiful home on the beach. She added that before she bought the home she envisioned the home in every detail.

She told us that we too can have what we want if we can envision it and proceeded to take us on a guided image meditation. First she asked us to imagine something that we wanted and to visualize in exacting detail. If it was a moment in time in the future, what kind of day is it? Is it sunny, rainy? If it's something material like a home, what color is it, where is it? What does it look like inside, the furniture, the paint on the walls? etc.

She went on like this for about 15 minutes. Most of the students were giggling, thinking the exercise stupid. Truth be told, I also thought it was dumb, but I followed her instructions to the letter. The really important part, according to the teacher, was that at the end of the visualization you had to imagine a “big, cosmic mailbox” and you were to place the vision you created during the exercise in a “big cosmic envelope” and clearly see yourself putting this envelope in that big cosmic mailbox. By now, people were laughing openly. I thought this part was really stupid, but I did it anyway.

She told us that we had to do this daily in order for it to work and she assured us that this was how she got her beautiful seaside home. She also stated that she used the gift of her home to promote the gifts that she herself received as a yoga teacher/ practitioner. After class, she stopped me and asked me if I really did the exercise and I nodded in the affirmative. She told me, “Good, do it every day because I see an energy surrounding you... ” I was taken back a little, but I felt her warmth and I nodded my head and just smiled at her.

I followed her instructions to a tee and did this visualization for some time and I 'm here to tell you that my vision came true. My vision, you ask? My vision was what my life as like 5 years later: the work that I do, my personal life -- everything. My vision, even how I dressed and smiled, and the sun shining through the window in my office, how I feel -- all of it came true.

Those that know me, know that I think that book/ video The Secret is a bunch of bullshit. It is! It's what some call a form of spiritualmaterialism. I don't really think envisioning material wealth is a very spiritual thing. After all, what happens when the beautiful home burns down? But I won't get into that today. What I want to make clear here is that I'm not saying that visualization itself is enough to create a world. Still, it's a beginning. You can achieve what you cannot envision.

For me, genuine happiness comes from not attaching it to any person, place, or thing. That was what I wanted most -- to be relieved of having my happiness depend on you. Well, not the you you, I’m using the word figuratively. I’ll use an example from my own life. Yesterday, I was turned down for two jobs. Right now I don’t have my own place to stay, I owe a ton of money, and I am under a lot of stress to get it together. All this could easily drive me to depression, or at least a major depressive episode. I am aware that all this matters -- I mean -- I can’t even pay the rent. But because my happiness is not centered on all that, I have some strength to draw from. I mean, at the very least, I’m probably the best-dressed technically homeless man in NYC (Hey! is there a contest for that?!). 

Today, I understand a little better how this works and it's all about reprogramming the mental software folks. And I’m here to remind myself and to tell you that we can create the world and life we desire. Part of my motivation is that I would like to create at least part of that world with you. We can have human justice. We can have a voice. We just have to entertain that possibility. And for less than the time it takes you to watch a reality show, you can create a whole universe. 

Now, let me go envision what I want my campaign to look like… LOL

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Monday Madness [The Myth of Freedom]

Hola Everybody,
I have a few job interviews set for this week, one being a second interview. I don’t pray, but you should pray for me. LOL

The Myth of Freedom

Falling Water, house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.
 -- Imamu Amiri Baraka (1934 - 2014)

Many years ago I once became lost in a national park in Connecticut. I was in my late teens-early 20s and a busload of us city kids planned a trip, and we all trekked up to some park in Armpit, USA. I am a dyed-in-the-wool city boy. And when I say city, I mean city. Please, I’ve traveled around this country and some places that use the term are laughable. Yes, I am a NYC snob: for a long time I considered anything above 14^th street Hicksville. Anyway, I grew up in the city and the first time I saw a pig live, I thought it was a cow! When I thought of pigs, what came to mind was that pig Arnold from the 1960s TV sitcom, Green Acres.

Whatever… 

Anyway, as soon as we reached our camp site, always the adventurous one, I convinced another poor soul to go exploring with me. Long story short: we became lost for close to 48 hours. What happened was that we kept walking in circles. There was this lake not too far from the camp, you see, and I (being the Brainiac of the two) decided if we followed the lakeshore, we would eventually end up where we started. 

The thing was we kept walking in circles, not around the lake, but within a confined space. We realized this after hours of walking because we kept seeing a rock formation that looked eerily familiar. The reason for that was that it was the same rock formation! By this time, it had gotten dark and there was a pronounced early October chill. To compound matters, my poor friend had inadvertently fallen into a cascade that hid a cave and he was freezing. After a little deliberation, we came to the conclusion that the cave was the best place to stay for the night.

We had nothing -- no matches, flashlight, compass, food, nothing. Even if we had a compass I doubt we would know how to use it. Eventually, we had to stop because of that annoying country tendency towards complete darkness. I mean, you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face. Fuck! To make matters worse, I swore I heard a wolf’s howl. I’m serious! Now, I don’t know if wolves actually exist in some Connecticut state park, but to this day, I swear I heard a howl. In addition, I didn’t make things better by voicing my conviction that the cave we had taken refuge in was very likely some Grizzly bear’s home.

So, there were, hungry, cold, fearful, and lost.

the next day we somehow found our way to a road, and by then our people had a whole posse looking for us, which ruined the trip for everyone else. We walked down the road until we came upon some ranger in a car who then proceeded to ask us if we had seen two Puerto Rican kids walking around lost… DUH?!?! Hellloooo?! Fuckin’ hicks… 

Of course, being philosophically inclined, I found all sorts of metaphors and meaning behind our little adventure, while my companion, who was freezing to death, cursed me the whole time. Still, it fascinated me that left to our own devices, we kept walking around in circles. Shit, we tried to walk differently, making lefts, where we had previously made rights, and still we walked in circles. What does that say about our own habitual patterns, I asked my friend, as he conjured new swear words for my edification.

For the next fifteen years of my life, that incident was to become a metaphor for how I lived: doing what I wanted, how I wanted, when I wanted, and mistaking that for freedom. I think many people mistake “following their bliss” for freedom when in actuality walking around in circles without a compass is the ultimate prison. It’s the ultimate prison because though we can’t see the bars, they exist as surely as real prison bars. In a very real sense, we’re all “doing time,” in some way or another.

True freedom, for me anyway, takes practice. Actually, it takes a set of practices that serve as a guideline and map to freedom. Walk around rudderless without direction long enough and you’ll find you’re creating the same mess repeatedly.

Habitual Patterns

I like to say that I became free while I was incarcerated and this is very true. Many years after that incident in the woods, I was incarcerated at a maximum-security facility. I’m not proud of that, but I have to admit there’s some irony in this story -- at least for me there is -- so I find some humor in all this now. It was early spring, my favorite time of the year, and I was in a prison yard looking at some mountains and feeling really depressed about being locked up.

Then it hit me... I was actually free. Just like that! I realized that though the state could control and confine my body, only I could give the permission to imprison my mind. It may not sound like a lot to you, but for me it was transformative experience. The fact that I could choose to be free no matter where I found myself blew me away.

Looking back, I understand now that it didn’t happen all at once, that my epiphany that day wasn’t something spontaneous. I understand now, my realization came about because of the work I had put in, but it hit me that day like a bolt of lightning in the middle of a completely dark country night: I was free. Free, right then, at that very moment.

It was amazing. I could choose to be free! This couldn’t be true. Nevertheless, I felt it in the very fiber of my being, this freedom was real, alive, a part of me, a part of my heritage as a human being. When I went back to my cell later that day, I shared my revelation with my neighbors and they all started laughing at me. They were, like, “Eddie, you in prison, bro.”

And they were correct, of course, at the gross (vs. subtle) level of reality, I was incarcerated. However, my realization was that while I could be coerced into prison physically, only I could give another permission to incarcerate my heart and mind. What I saw clearly for the first time that day was that I was giving the prison authorities this permission to take my mind, to imprison my heart. From that day on, I became free and my life, even within the prison walls, changed dramatically. I no longer felt at the mercy of sadistic prison guards or all the other insanity that goes on in prison. From that day on, I was free -- really free -- and all my interactions reflected this realized freedom. What happened was that people began responding to me differently: guards, who previously were able to press my buttons, didn’t know how to deal with the newer, free me, for example, leaving them confused and anxious.

Other people incarcerated with me would ask why I looked different: was I exercising more, did I gain weight? Eventually, my freedom permeated my immediate surroundings and those in contact with me began doing their own inner work, in the process transforming our collective prison experience. The effect was so palpable that I was eventually transferred from that location because I was deemed too dangerous. But by then it was too late, even in solitary confinement, they couldn’t take my freedom away.

I became free that early spring day and though there are times I choose to give up my freedom -- especially when I come into contact with people with hate in their hearts -- I have chosen freedom more often than not these past 25 years. My personal liberation, I have found, is not individual, dedicated solely to me, but instead it comes with a responsibility and an awareness that it affects everything around me. That other prison we all share, the myth that we are separate from others, has also dissolved and as a result your personal liberation is also important to me.

Ultimately, I have learned that my freedom demands I choose happiness. I never even knew I had that choice. It is my responsibility as a human being, actually, this choice. This is why I always say that everything we ever need for our happiness exists right here, right now, this very moment… this very life. This is true whether your prison is made of concrete and bars or psychic defilements.

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…