You'll want to read the meditation posting before this one, and maybe do that meditation a few times, before you read this posting. This posting will talk about the things you encountered while trying to hold your attention steady.
To quickly recap: these things (thoughts, images, emotions, sounds, body sensations, etc) arise as phenomena in awareness. Each phenomenon has a beginning and ending. Before it begins, and after it ends, it is not present in awareness. While it is present, it does not remain constant, it is changing (perhaps subtly) all the time. Buddhism calls this anicca or impermanence. No moment of awareness is exactly like any other.
When we attend only to the things that are in awareness right in this precise moment, there are certain items that we do NOT find. We don't find any time except right now. We don't find the past or the future. We don't find any hypotheticals, like what it would be like if the Confederacy had won the Civil War, or you had married that other person. We don't find other planets or galaxies, or even other towns or cities. Everything we encounter is what's in this reality, right here, right now.
The only way the past appears is as memories and the emotions they stir, such as fondness, regret, grief, pride, or loathing. So, thoughts and emotions.
The only way the future appears is as predictions, and emotions such as hope, fear, contentment, eagerness, or despair. More thoughts and emotions.
Ordinarily we view the world in objective terms. There's a reality out there, and we perceive it with our senses, and we have our own thoughts and feelings about what's going on. But the final authority is always out there, not in here.
You can imagine reversing that. Suppose the final authority is in here. Your awareness is primary. Then come the phenomena that you're aware of. Somewhere out there, maybe something is happening that might or might not influence some of those phenomena. But all the interesting stuff is happening in here.
I call this the subjective orientation. It's a very different way to view life. Not too useful for getting to the airport on time or getting a good grade on an exam, but very useful for looking at happiness and suffering.
If you've done some meditation, you've realized that your thoughts are not you. Neither are your emotions or your opinions. In fact they arise unbidden whether you want them or not, as if they were something you stepped in one day by accident.
Anything that can surprise you, that you need to keep an eye on, that might change without your knowing, cannot be you. Start to take an interest in what things are capable of surprising you.
To quickly recap: these things (thoughts, images, emotions, sounds, body sensations, etc) arise as phenomena in awareness. Each phenomenon has a beginning and ending. Before it begins, and after it ends, it is not present in awareness. While it is present, it does not remain constant, it is changing (perhaps subtly) all the time. Buddhism calls this anicca or impermanence. No moment of awareness is exactly like any other.
When we attend only to the things that are in awareness right in this precise moment, there are certain items that we do NOT find. We don't find any time except right now. We don't find the past or the future. We don't find any hypotheticals, like what it would be like if the Confederacy had won the Civil War, or you had married that other person. We don't find other planets or galaxies, or even other towns or cities. Everything we encounter is what's in this reality, right here, right now.
The only way the past appears is as memories and the emotions they stir, such as fondness, regret, grief, pride, or loathing. So, thoughts and emotions.
The only way the future appears is as predictions, and emotions such as hope, fear, contentment, eagerness, or despair. More thoughts and emotions.
Ordinarily we view the world in objective terms. There's a reality out there, and we perceive it with our senses, and we have our own thoughts and feelings about what's going on. But the final authority is always out there, not in here.
You can imagine reversing that. Suppose the final authority is in here. Your awareness is primary. Then come the phenomena that you're aware of. Somewhere out there, maybe something is happening that might or might not influence some of those phenomena. But all the interesting stuff is happening in here.
I call this the subjective orientation. It's a very different way to view life. Not too useful for getting to the airport on time or getting a good grade on an exam, but very useful for looking at happiness and suffering.
If you've done some meditation, you've realized that your thoughts are not you. Neither are your emotions or your opinions. In fact they arise unbidden whether you want them or not, as if they were something you stepped in one day by accident.
Anything that can surprise you, that you need to keep an eye on, that might change without your knowing, cannot be you. Start to take an interest in what things are capable of surprising you.
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