Exploring Mind

Embrace all compassion and gentleness, all ye who enter here

I’ve been a thinker for pretty much all my life. I distinctly remember sitting on the grass at recess in third grade and wondering, “Do other people think? Like, do they have a voice in their heads that thinks thoughts?”

I now realize that thinking carries with it real risks. Too much of it can significantly impair doing, and doing is what most people seem to care about.

Not only that, but if we keep thinking, we can go pretty deep down some rabbit holes which may be hard to find our way out of. Worse yet: we may not want to find our way out.

Lately, to save my sanity, I’ve discovered meditation and Buddhism. Buddhism is clearly the best way to spelunk into the deep realms of mind and “self,” or as they say in Buddhism, “no self.”

Yes, I think I’ve finally found a home. A tradition where absolutely no thought is off limits. Everything is to be observed, noted, and questioned, down to every last shred of reality and “self.” This can seem scary at first, especially if no one you know or live with is neurodivergent. But after a while of practice, it can be really nice not to be so scared of all the shadows that we’ve been subconsciously dodging or running away from our entire lives. And for good reason too. A good society needs shadow in order to function peaceably and productively.

But when the shadows become impossible to ignore any more, and start to seep through even the lull of medications, it starts to become very difficult to keep pretending everything is OK.

After some practice training the mind, we can know for ourselves that everything is definitely not OK. And we can learn to be OK with that.

Be well, friends. Be compassionate with mind - your own, others’ - they’re not as separate as we think.
🙏