Mental chatter

[Cameron]

I don't want to make a habit of this but someone was kind enough to just give me "What's Wrong with Right Now" by 'Sailor' Bob Adamson. He has a really good way of explaining stuff.

 

I'll just quote one passage.

 

Question:Is there any way to stop this chatter?

 

Bob:No. Do you chatter? Understand and watch it. If you haven't got a vested interest in it, what is going to happen? It is going to die down. You see, when the chatter starts and I attribute it to 'me' and 'I want this' or 'I don't like that' or 'He said so and so' and 'blah,blah,blah,blah'-I have a vested interest in it. Now, in that vested interest what is happening? The energy of 'I and 'this'. The 'I' is a thought, and the 'this' is a thought. But that energy is opposed to itself. It is a dissipating energy. It is in conflict with itself. But if I understand that there is no centre here and that it is just chatter and I am aware of it, then there is no 'me' that wants anything out of it. There is nothing resisting it. It is just what is. Then there is no energy going into it.

 

Now, can a thing live without energy? No! So, in the watching of it, in the awareness of it without bothering about it, in seeing it for what it is, that it is false, it is going to die down of it's own accord. So, there is no need to try and stop it. In trying to stop it, the mind will be in conflict with the mind. That will get you into all sorts of trouble, which it has done until now.

[Taomeow]

I remember a passage from Opening The Dragon's Gate where Wang Liping is being taught how to handle mental chatter. Once a thought arises, immediately pass a judgement on it. Declare it right, declare it wrong, or declare "this is as far as it goes." I've tried it. Works like a charm.

 

This technique is subtly but significantly different from assuming that "it's all false," in that some of your thoughts are indeed false but others are not false at all, in fact they are quite true; while still others are a problem not because they are false or genuine but because they are just opening lines that are dragging you into more of the story when you weren't planning to "go there." So this simple technique -- giving each thought the benefit of an assessment for "this thought specifically and no other," this non-lumping them all together into an indistingushable mass of "false stuff," seems to offer one's thinking mind some respect and recognition -- and a normal mind does want some respect, believe it or not, for its workings --

 

so if you offer it the benefit of aware respect, then it's likely to be satisfied and prepared to shut up (if getting it to shut up is the goal of the moment). It's as though you're dealing with a child -- ignoring whatever she has to say on the assumption it's a priori all without merit will maybe cause her to shut up, sulkingly, but it won't cause her to feel peaceful knowing she's had a fair chance to say all she had to say... so even if she shuts up, 'tis not in peace, it's in resentment and hurt feelings and a sense of being unresolved.

 

Another trick I used to apply was to personify my every thought -- see it as a girl of a particular age, or a woman, animal, even machine -- a person with a personality or an object with a "behavior." They would all talk and talk competing for the limelight, and then I would bring one lovely lady to the foreground who would call out in a musical voice, "Please be quiet, everybody, and listen to me!" "Oh yeah? Why should we listen to you, who do you think you are?!" "I am the goddess of harmony," she would tell them, "I'm here to organize you all just so that everybody helps everybody else and no one is left out." That would instantly calm them all down, and she would get to work. She would undertake grouping and regrouping all my thoughts into compatible, non-antagonistic teams. You know, the thought who is really an infant with her incessant "I want, I need, I want, I need..." would get the thought that is a deity with her "I give, I'm generous, I'm rich, I've got everything" to mother her... The thought that is a warrior that goes "kill kill kill" would get a thought that is a suicidal teenager to put out of her misery... and so on. No one was left behind without a noble task, and they all loved the goddess of harmony...