[TerriLS]

Hi friends

I wrote the below 4 years ago and posted it on my blog. Please bear with my English.
I appreciate any comments, thanks.


mindfulness and thought observation


Most people "think" they can think their own thoughts. They don't know (and maybe never will) that their thoughts do not arise out of their will ("on the tip on the tongue" phenomenon is the proof). Indeed, most (if not all of )our thoughts arise unintentionally/unconsciously. To realize that mindfulness is needed. But before that it’s hard to discern those two systems of thoughts.

As for mindfulness practice, when one starts to watch one’s mind, then it has something to do with watching one thinking (at the very beginning) and the means and the end of that practice are called mindfulness; attentiveness; detached watching; awareness etc. Mindfulness is not the meditative state in the real sense but one also gets a loop meditation as a result, too.

Meditation normally is used as a basic procedure for trying to have no-thinking, no thought (or feeling etc.) by concentrate on something such as chanting, mantra, bead counting, breathing, body movement etc. to get one-pointedness of mind, therefore a meditation. In Eastern tradition, this may concern with a meditation device; object of meditation; the method of inducing concentration by grazing at any of the ten objects, viz., earth, water, fire, air, blue, yellow, red, white, space and light. When any thought arises, one tries to shake them off and returns to his object of meditation again and again. But the difference between meditation and mindfulness practicing is that when any thought arises in one’s mind, what mindfulness does is just watching/obesrving them, not shaking them off such like meditation. It'd rather allow the thinking to occur (to observe them), not to block them for the sake of meditative state. Why? Because if one blocks them off he cannot observe them when they arise (or in the real life situation after he pauses his meditation to do something else.)

Again, one also needs the object of mindfulness because without it he will never known he is thinking (no mindfulness or thought observer) and will be took over by his own thinking, his thought.
In watching one’s mind, the observed systems of mindfulness may be just the probabilities. This means that we can never predicted with certainty when a certain thought will arise at a certain time (to be observed.) All we can do is to stay alert with our object of mindfulness such as our breathing etc. Normally, when any thought occurs, we would be took over by it and forget our object of mindfulness. Then, we forget or have no mindfulness any more. Only when we turn our focus on our object of mindfulness again, mindfulness will be come back.

What’s interesting is how can we know for sure that this thought observing system in our mind or mindfulness (that watching the thought) is not just another thought disguised itself to be mindfulness? For example, a thought that one will get another drink as a reward for NOT drinking that drink. ;-)
However, most of our thoughts are unstable, they inevitably fade away into other thoughts or feelings at a certain time. That happens automatically and naturally (this is why some practice stress on NOT doing anything for letting that primordial state arises.) Therefore, for the beginning, it is not possible for our mindfulness to detect every thoughts that already arose, or predict the next time it will arise exactly. Mindfulness can only observe the probability of thoughts. Besides, many thoughts have so powerful that mindfulness cannot stop them, to observe them. If mindfulness is like the knife for cutting the bond of thought, the strength of the hands to hold it is also necessary. That’s why more and more practice is necessary.

By the way, if we want to observe any thought, we must first isolate it, or create it. The problem is our thought occurs spontaneously and unconsciously at not exactly (random) time. And the irony is if we keep watching it, it will not arise and when it really arise we will lost our mindfulness and don’t observe it anymore, even don’t know that it has arisen.
Therefore in mindfulness or thought observation practice, both our thought and mindfulness must be connected together as a whole. It exists and has meaning only in this context. This is because the interacting between thought and mindfulness is always required, otherwise thought observation will never took place. Therefore, what we need is not only the thought observation but the participating observation of thought.

On the further consideration, as mentioned above: how can we know for sure that what supposed to be mindfulness that observing the thought is not just another thought disguised itself to be mindfulness? So the question is: at what stage of mind does that "thought observation" take place? Therefore, there should be another hidden observer (similar to Ernest Hilgard’s hidden observer) who is a friend of mindfulness that watching the thought involved (it’s like Wigner’s friend after “Schrodinger’ cat” in thought experiment in Physics). Only when this hidden observer appears into one’s mind, before that point, those participating observation of thoughts still be a superposition of “thought-thought” and “thought-mindfulness”.

[heennaRaf]

I think I got the gist of what you wrote, wanderer. Thoughts without a thinker, deeds without a doer... Trying to find the thinker during meditation is, for me, crucial in comprehending anatta. That can lead to a deeper understanding of paticca samuppada and a host of other doctrines the Buddha taught, too. A number of other benefits come to mind, too.

[allvideO]

What’s interesting is how can we know for sure that this thought observing system in our mind or mindfulness (that watching the thought) is not just another thought disguised itself to be mindfulness?

For me this aspect is pivotal to meditation.

The simple answer is - practice. With practice I think one can begin to discriminate.

But much depends on why you are meditating at all. Is it just to sit still for a while and watch one's thoughts as they arise? Or are you going to analyze some particular issue; like - where is this 'I' that fuels the ego; or - from whence comes anger?

Somewhere I read that the meditator is something of a psychonaut - one that drifts within the thoughts that arise in the mind without hitching a ride on any passing object.

Good points raised - and your English is fine.