The world you see externally is merely a projection of the world within you. In fact, the world outside is an exact replica of the one within you. Your inner world is a product of your thoughts. Due to your forgotten nature, your inner world constantly gets affected by the world outside. If the inner world is in turmoil, the outer world appears just as listless and doomed. This fluctuation of emotions is a constant affair in an ordinary mind.
“Man’s mind,” said Confucius, “is more treacherous than mountains and rivers, and more difficult to know than the sky. For with the sky you know what to expect in respect of the coming of spring, summer, autumn and winter, and the alternation of day and night…”5
It needn’t be this way though. For behind every feeling and experience, there is the thought. Absence of thoughts, however, does not lead to absence of feelings. On the contrary, a still mind is like the tranquil lake, it’s like the calm ocean, an absolute beauty. For thoughts are the ripples in that lake, emotions are the waves in the ocean of mind. They remain inseparable though – waves from ocean.
You look at the whole and you see the parts. You understand the parts and you grasp the whole. If you get a grip on the anatomy, construction and nature of a thought, you’ll instantly understand all that there is to understand about mind. You will immediately realize why and how meditation helps you harness your mind leading to inner peace and bliss.
The Journey of a Thought
A young man goes into the confessional box and says, “Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have missed Mass twice and
I slept with a girl.”
“Is that you, Josh Worth?” “Yes, Father.”
“Who was this girl you were with?”
“I’m sorry, Father, but I can’t take her name to protect her reputation.”
“Was it Katherine O’Brien?” The priest guessed because it was a small community and everyone knew everyone.
“No Father”. “Mary Board?” “No Father.”
“Was it Fiona James?”
“No Father! I can’t tell you.”
“I appreciate your determination to protect her, son,” the priest says, “but you must atone for your sins. Your penance will be four Hail Marys.”
Josh runs out to his friends who ask him, “What did you get?” “I got three very good leads!” he replies triumphantly. “Will
go and call Katherine first.”
Thoughts are never a problem until you act on them. Thoughts of lust, negativity, jealousy, envy, hatred, possessiveness are normal. For, an average human mind gets more than 60,000 thoughts in a span of 24 hours. It is but natural that a number of those thoughts are going to be undesirable. Having a bad thought doesn’t make you a bad person. No one can escape impure thoughts. We don’t have any control over our thoughts. Any thought can come and hit us from any direction. But what we do have control over is whether we want to pursue that thought or if we want to turn it into an action.
There’s no one on this planet who has never had an immoral or impure thought. Having such thoughts don’t make anyone bad, for thoughts are not good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral, they are just thoughts. They take one or the other form based on how we pursue and deploy them. Let’s say, you are passing through the woods and you come across a dry and thin branch of a tree lying on the ground. You can use it as a walking stick, or as firewood, or to protect yourself, or, hopefully not, even to beat up some poor animal. What you do with the stick determines whether it is good or bad. On its own, the stick has little meaning. Similarly, the wise don’t feel guilty for having unwelcome thoughts. They know they don’t have to act on them. And by action, I’m not just referring to physical actions but mental ones too. When we cling to a thought or follow its track, we are performing a mental karma, and that, in turn, is the seed of all physical actions.
Good meditators, or even mindful people, transcend their thoughts by simply watching them. Most thoughts are random and fickle; they are not worth pursuing. Upon close examination, you will discover that thoughts are highly ephemeral and if you don’t hold on to them, they disappear exactly like bubbles in water. Whenever you are bothered by any lingering thought, simply ask yourself the following three questions and watch it become feeble in no time:
From where has this thought originated?
Where is it traveling?
Where has it disappeared?
As you ponder on these, you begin to understand the anatomy of a thought; basically, its emptiness. They are empty. Thoughts have no definitive point of origin, no set course of travel, and no specific site of disappearance. When you see an object in a mirror, you can classify the sight as beautiful or ugly, desirable or otherwise but what happens when the mirror faces another mirror, when it looks at its own reflection, what will it see? The reflection will keep bouncing off each other infinitely. Similarly, when the mind examines itself, it starts to disappear in its own vast existence.
Mists rise from the earth and vanish into space.
They go nowhere, nor do they stay.
Likewise, though thoughts arise,
Whenever you see your mind, the clouds of thinking clear.
Space is beyond colour or shape.
It doesn’t take on colour, black or white: it doesn’t change.
Likewise, your mind, in essence, is beyond colour or shape.
It does not change because you do good or evil.
The darkness of a thousand eons cannot dim
The brilliant radiance that is the essence of the sun.
Likewise, eons of samsara cannot dim
The sheer clarity that is the essence of your mind.
Although you say space is empty,
You can’t say that space is “like this”.
Likewise, although mind is said to be sheer clarity,
There is nothing there: you can’t say “it’s like this”.
Thus, the nature of mind is inherently like space:
It includes everything you experience.
Stop all physical activity: sit naturally at ease.
Do not talk or speak: let sound be empty, like an echo.
Do not think about anything: look at experience beyond thought.
Your body has no core, hollow like bamboo.
Your mind goes beyond thought, open like space.
Let go of control and rest right there.7
Just like two pieces of wood can be rubbed together to produce fire and the same fire later consumes them both, intellect and concentration support the contemplative meditation. But when the fire of insight arises, it consumes both intellect and concentration, giving way to pristine awareness. This is the ultimate state for a meditator – not only understanding the nature of thoughts and rising above them, but living in complete awareness.
Like waves in the ocean disappear in the same sea they had originated from, thoughts emerge from and merge back into the same mind. Some start to surf these waves, but no matter how giant or exhilarating a wave, how beautiful the swell, how tidal the sea, how expert the surfer, the waves will toss him eventually. And this brings me to the moral of the story: there are no calming thoughts really, just like there are no stable waves.
A thought that’s appeasing today could well be disturbing tomorrow. For example, you love someone today and their thought brings you joy, but tomorrow you may fall out of love and those same thoughts of them will give you grief. A good meditator knows that thoughts, at their best, can only calm the mind temporarily and intermittently.
In the ocean of your mind, when it comes to the waves of thoughts, you have three choices: first, surf and accept the highs and lows; second, watch the waves and put up with the constant sound of the sea; and third, move away from the ocean altogether.