Thread by @chagmed

@girlziplocked we're upright chimpanzees with barely a clue RE our inner world or the outer world surrounding us.

humans have no genuine insight into the working of their minds.

conjuring reasons for why we do/don't do things is mere improvisation.

Over the course of 25 years, I've done a lot of practice, including a total of 2+ years in retreat. I've spent a lot of time working with mind.

Meditation is tremendously beneficial, but it won't provide insight into the inner workings of mind.

The inner workings of mind are essentially opaque to that mind. Being an experienced meditator will not change that.

It isn't a matter of looking harder. There is no seeing beyond the curtain.

Yes, meditation can cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness can subsequently blossom into expansive awareness. Awareness has the potential to provide insight, pacify habitual negative patterns.

But will you understand why you do/don't do things? No.

Why does this matter? Because mind is a narrative machine — an all-too-willing supplier of stories, rationalizations, histories, and other blah blah blah.

Before the 'why?' question is fully expressed, mind's kitchen is already preparing a bountiful buffet of possibilities.

If you've ever experimented with "recreational substances", you understand the importance of knowing your dealer.

Take care: your mind — which you hold so dear — is not a trustworthy dealer.

Mind the dealer is too willing to supply you addictive, palliative stories.

For two decades I was part of a tradition which prided itself on its insight into the nature of mind.

This was fine on the meditation cushion, but the wisdom of meditative insight wasn't affecting students' relation to their own narratives.

To be clear: I am not denigrating the practices of mindfulness & awareness. I treasure them — they've changed my life.

Rather, I'm pointing out that practice cannot be left on the cushion.

Make an effort to bring your on-cushion practice into your off-cushion life.

If you've experienced mindfulness, a glimpse of awareness, etc., you'll want to cultivate the causes and conditions for that insight to stabilize and expand.

And when mind the narrative-dealer offers you a story, you'll want to look twice before accepting his wares.

Therefore, friends, be suspicious of simple self-narratives:

"I'm this way because I'm a Scorpio [or Hungarian, or an INFJ, or a victim, or a Lutheran, etc.]"

Explanatory auto-mythology provides a sense of reason/order/causation, but it's essentially useless.

Mind the narrative machine has no off switch, so it's best to learn to recognize and work with what emerges from your endlessly creative mind.

Meditation training helps in this regard, as does EFT (emotional freedom techniques), and maintaining a regular sleep schedule, etc.

Alas, most humans are sleep-walking through life, never having experienced the insight that their emotions and opinions aren't, in fact, aspects of objective reality, but fleeting notions in a never-static mind-menagerie.

The lucid dreamer knows s/he is dreaming, and thus can relate to the dream *as* a dream.

Waking consciousness is *not* a dream, but the ever-present overlay of narratives, likes, dislikes, enemies, friends, etc., make it dream-like — part real, part fantasy.

Insight into self is beneficial, but our species thrived because we're highly social apes. Alas, social interactions can be beneficial or toxic.

The yogi is therefore as skeptical of others' narratives/auto-mythologies as he is of his own.

Viruses are infectious, as are the mental viruses we call memes:

"Immigrants should go back where they came from"

"Those people are lazy"

"God said that this land belongs to us"

Memes are weaponized discursive thoughts. They spread conflict, war, and death.

It behooves anyone with a complex instrument to understand its use (and misuse).

Even CERN's Large Hadron Collider isn't as complex as your mind.

We cannot understand mind, but we can learn how to work with it, recognize its quirks, be skeptical of its conclusions.

With experiential understanding of mind's endless ability to fool itself, cling to its mirages, we can then see how everyone around us engages in the same activity — believing mind's press releases, and acting upon them.

Insight into the ways that we (and all beings) cling to stories, are enslaved by them, and harm ourselves/others as a result — this is the starting point for a tender, heartfelt compassion.

Heartfelt compassion born of insight isn't condescending pity (which is actually a subtle manifestation of disgust).

Rather, it's experiential understanding: "I suffer. Everyone suffers. Perhaps I can remind myself of this and strive to be more kind."

My brother engages in nostalgia RE his youth. He repeats the same stories. This used to annoy me.

I now see that he is self-medicating by recollecting better days.

I neither need to encourage him, nor try to re-orient his thinking. He wouldn't be receptive to either.

I have also learned to channel my annoyance viz my brother's habitual patterns by asking myself:

"How do I self-medicate with narratives, heroic self-myths, pats on my own back, justifications, other forms of mental masturbation?"

Engaged with a sense of honesty (and humor), delving into what bothers us about others' patterns is nothing less than a gold mine.

What was formerly ignored or discarded is actually very precious. The poison becomes medicine.