If we believe we are a finite body-mind, then the world is a dangerous place. Even in prosperous Western society, where comforts abound (at least for some), life is still largely a manner of luck. The niggling pain in your side could turn out to be a tumour. That long car trip may involve a fatal accident. The war between Ukraine and Russia may go nuclear, and so on.
If we believe ourselves to be a finite body-mind, it only makes sense that we would want to hold onto this bodily life we have for as long as possible. Therefore the sensation and torment of fear arises in our awareness. This fear can become crippling, even when our life isn’t really in danger, yet the mind behaves as if it is.
You perceive that your boss is displeased with a part of your work? Panic! I may lose my job and starve. In fear, the mind tends to lose its sense of proportion and likelihood, frequently overreacting and causing suffering to the body-mind.
With fear also comes time. To protect itself, the mind imagines future scenarios and actions it could perform to avoid suffering and maximise pleasure. Hence a simulation of time is born. As discussed previously, time and perceiving one’s self to be a finite body-mind are inextricably tied together - for the mind can only imagine itself as this finite object projected into the “future” or “past”. The True Self that we are is not possible to be conceived of as an object, and therefore there is no way for us to imagine this True Self in the past or future.
But I digress.
With fear and time the controller is created. The mind believes it will be able to keep itself safe if it can just think of all future possibilities and ensure it has a plan to sustain itself in each one. So it sets about trying to manipulate reality to match its imaginings and plans.
The mind, in this process, separates itself from the reality it wishes to control (though, of course, this is impossible). It considers itself a sovereign monarch, standing over reality as if it were its unruly subject. If events don’t play out as they are “supposed to” according to the controller, terrible stress and anger can enter awareness - the haughty emperor of reality can get very upset.
This way of being is a tragic comedy - tragic because of the suffering it causes, comic because the mind has never been in control of anything in its entirety of being.
Let’s reflect on experience to see why that is so.
The impotence of the mind
Imagine you are visiting a friend and you are asked if you want tea or coffee. There is a pause. Then you answer with either “tea” or “coffee”. Suppose you are then asked later why you chose coffee, you might say something like “Oh, I chose coffee because I was feeling a bit weary and needed a pick me up”.
But think about the actual experience. Did “you” or the mind actually chose coffee? There was the question, a pause or internal silence, and then an answer. Did you experience a “mind” producing the answer, or did it just emerge from the silence, the emptiness? I think you’ll find that it emerged from the silence.
Yet when you are asked later about why you chose coffee, the mind “fills in the gaps” so to speak. It generates a reason for why coffee was chosen even though there was no reason in the actual experience. The mind, if you like, takes ownership of the decision when it wasn’t even involved in it.
If we examine our experience carefully we’ll see that this is the case for all our actions and decisions. The action or decision arises out of the silence, without “us” (that is, our mind’s description of ourself) being involved. Yet the mind, which is an interpreter of experience or a storyteller more than it is a controller, weaves a narrative about itself being the orchestrator of all experience.
This is the comedy - the mind, imagining itself to be a grand master controller of reality, is really just a teller of stories. It is less the 4-star-general than it is the bard.
Letting go of controlling
To let go of the controller one has to really see that the mind is not in control. Then, gradually, the notion that one has to constantly plan and try to think about the future will fade away. Perhaps the best exercise to see this is to sit quietly and observe thoughts as they arise and fall away. Notice their spontaneity, and the lack of any limited “thinker” which produces them.
Once this is clearly understood, then one is satisfied simply observing life as it comes, surrendering to what is. This is all that anyone ever does anyway - the controlling mind imagines itself to be apart from the reality it considers itself to control, when in reality the thoughts that constitute it are as much part of reality as anything else, arising and falling like the songs of the birds.
Make it a personal hobby to notice how decisions, thoughts and actions arise from “nowhere”. In reality they arise from the True Self, infinite Awareness, which cannot be objectified by the finite mind because it is too vast for such conceptualisation.
Enjoy living in the present moment. Once the controller dissipates, there is no longer any drive to depart from the present to search out the future (or ruminate on the past). Life unfolds, and there is nothing to be done about it - when the controller is gone we can enjoy the show of life.
We then dissolve into life, and fear vanishes - but more on that in a future post.
Peace be with you my friends.
Much of our experiences of life lie in the tensions between two opposing desires, the desire to be in control vs the desire to let go is an interesting one to explore. It's in the tensions that we find life's lessons, and personal growth.
Slowly but surely I am starting to feel that I am just watching. It’s becoming experimental just by attending as much as I can. Great read!