My experience with sensation and the thinker.
First, when I switch my attention to sensation, it’s like there’s a burst of sensations one after another. There are the pressures of my butt and my arm on the chair; the skin over my eyebrow might itch; there is a sound in my ears that I might refer to as a constant high frequency hiss; there are temperature variations to each different sensation, though not all of them. Sometimes there are scents, but rarely do I notice tastes. There are dozens of others that pop up to attract my attention, then disperse as others appear. All the sensations are “me and mine” …my body-centric sensations.
Second, I notice sensations external to my body. These can be the sounds of motor cars, people walking and talking on the sidewalk, the furnace starting and stopping, the changes in the quality of light in one part of the room in which I’m sitting compared to another part of the room…and of course I can sense a temperature increase as the afternoon sun, right now, shines through the window.
Third, I decide to stop naming all these sensations and rather than noticing each separate sensation as unique, there arises a lack of differentiation between the sensations of “myself” and sensations external to “me”. There are just all these sensations floating around with no attachment to “my ownership” of them. They are just different types of vibration, without the naming of each form.
I might use the word orchestral to describe the developing reception of these sensations. There’s no longer the increase in frequency of these different sensations arising as at the very beginning of this experience. I might say that instead of all these popcorns popping, these polka dots of sensation arising, there is just a broad horizontal swath of sensation. More importantly, there is less and less of the “me” that’s giving attention to these sensations. There is less the observer and more the observed.
There is still a centre point of sensing. However, it decreases in density and location as that horizontal band of sensation I previously experienced gets wider and more vertical or higher or northward…into space. It is a three dimensional band of sensation and once more there is less of me, the thinker, the observer.
Then, there is a sensitivity to space…spaciousness… that is absent of sensations rooted in the physical world…,but it’s still something that can be experienced that is definitively different from the sensations produced by the body and the immediate environment to the body. My “me” …the thinker…is more thoroughly dispersed.
And what happens when I recall my attention from sensation? From this dispersion of myself?
“Me” again appears. The thinker…encaged and running on the mouse’s wheel.
Again. Again. Again.
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April 3, 2025
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March 22, 2025One of the outstanding observable characteristics of humans is how they assemble a thinker. Do you know this about yourself?
Thoughts come and go. No matter. You observe something. A thought arises in response. This is not thinking. This is thought. When thought follows along after attention, like the pen follows the hand, recording the movements of the attention, this could be called mentation. No thinker is required. The best poetry is this.
Thinking is a self-referential process. Your thinker is an assemblage held together by habit and a sense of identity. I am thinking easily becomes I am the thinker. Thinking has one thought following another, requiring limited or no input from the rest of the universe. It’s isolated within the mental sphere, coheres around an idea of an identity, proceeds by way of association and follows the well worn grooves of past thinking, sustained by specific muscular contractions..
Sit comfortably. Relax the body, releasing all the muscular tensions not required for sitting. Take your time. This has many layers. Then bring attention into sensation, all the sensations of sitting and breathing. Observe if there is part of you that is withheld. Agree to fully engage in attending to sensations and breathing. Agree to have nothing else to consider or attend to. Thoughts come and go? No matter.
Notice when you withdraw from engaging with sensation. Does this coincide with forming a thinker? Can you observe the assembling of the thinker as it occurs, the transfer of attention to a center in seeming control, becoming the thinker, a center that limits and screens engagement? When you have seen this many times, returning each time to simple attention on sensation, you have learned to engage in the real world. -
January 1, 2024
Thinking is not the problem. Thoughts arise and fall away. They notate our experiences and enable us to achieve coherent action. The issue is not to identify with the thinker. Let thinking ride the rail of attention, which is called mentation.
Tags: attention, mentation, thinker, work notes
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November 21, 2015
I am committed to do the work but the difficulties of my life continually take me out of it, leaving me feeling disappointed. Clearly I need to change my situation so I can do the work.
For most of us, ordinary life is very hard. There are many setbacks and difficulties. Our attention is continually being pulled involuntarily in different directions. But let’s be clear. If we did not have these problems, we would have no interest in the work and no opportunity to work.
I remember Baba Ram Das saying: “No appointment, no disappointment.” This is true from one point of view and it’s a valuable insight, but not one for all occasions. The first step towards the work is taken when you come to understand that the world cannot satisfy you, that for all its beauty, everything it has to offer you is insufficient. This is a great disappointment but a necessary one.
And it must be noted that successful people, in the conventional sense, are rarely attracted to the fourth way for long. They may think that this work will help them be more successful, that it will give them additional powers for personal attainment, but it is not so.
The difficulties of life are necessary for work. The greater difficulty is when we are no longer disappointed for ourselves because then a huge source of work energy is lost. Equanimity is much more dangerous to one’s work than struggle, although equanimity also has its place in the later stages, when it is no longer a cover for complacency or defeatism. But we have the ongoing heartbreak of disappointment on behalf of others, especially our children and young friends.
For me, the disappointment leads to negative thoughts and moods which make it impossible to work.
Dealing with one’s negativity about oneself is absolutely critical. Continual self-criticism is enormously destructive. In the process of learning meditation, control of these states can be developed. Essentially, in meditation you learn to separate from thinking, to know in real time that you are perception and attention, not the thinker. This separation is dis-identification, a disengagement from the thinker and a re-engagement with voluntary attention. It is not stopping thoughts. It is a shift of identity.
This does not come easily for me.
There are other things you can do. Vajrayana teaches hundreds of possible antidotes. Strictly speaking, meditation is not an antidote. Placing attention on sensation can be effective. Negative thoughts need a certain amount of attention to flourish. Shifting attention elsewhere is like cutting the power cord on negative thinking. Move to an activity that diverts your attention.
Voluntarizing negative states and self-talk can also generate surprisingly positive results; rather than compound the negativity by criticizing yourself for it, agree to go into it. Intentionally make yourself emphatically negative and see what it looks like (probably best in private). You may even laugh at yourself, which is a most wonderful antidote.
Ultimately, the only real refuge is to be present in the present. That is where real help can be found. The past and the future have almost all the negativity in our lives. Of course, there may be exceptions such as those who experience high levels of physical pain.
One general rule. When in a negative space, do not let yourself think about or act upon anything important, until the mood has passed. Protect what is precious to you.
Tags: antidote, disappointment, meditation, negative, presence, thinker, vajrayana, voluntarize
