The other day, I had one of those moments where I noticed….
….”OH. I’m here. Without thought. Just here.”
Even though seconds before I had images in my head about all kinds of things with a voice offering advice: go make those copies for Breitenbush, do laundry so you’re ready with clean clothes, I hope he’s doing OK with his cancer treatment, I hope she’s going to find peace with her mother, I need to email them, I wonder what she’s doing right now, I need to reply to him, set that up, do this.
The mind is so fast and full. Jam packed with possibilities and ideas and plans.
Scenes, memories, pictures, thoughts ticker tape through.
But as something draws your attention through your day….who are you without your thoughts about it?
Who am I without my thoughts?
Dang, what a crazy question…but what a wonderful, fascinating, exploratory question.
Don’t I need my thoughts? Wouldn’t I be some kind of weirdo without thoughts? Or dumb as a post?
As a memory steps through your mind, the image of someone’s face, or a scary picture, or the idea for a task, or your calendar, there’s a response in the body, in emotions perhaps (or sometimes, oddly, there is not response at all).
Who would you be without believing the image, picture, response was true?
Kinda cosmic, right?!?
But WOW.
It’s lighter, it’s even exciting, it’s relaxing, it’s a willingness not to take whatever you’re bumping into so seriously, including the pictures floating through your own mind about what your encounters mean about the future.
Turning the whole entire experience around: Thinking is not required. I don’t need to think, to “have” thoughts, or even “good” thoughts in order to be safe, secure, alive, successful, or happy.
Holy Moly.
Thoughts appear. Then, I notice they aren’t present, I’m simply observing. I also notice I’m sleeping sometimes–no thinking going on during sleep. I notice I also “lose my train of thought” all the time, and everything’s apparently fine.
Life goes on. Without a thought about it.
As I observed this wonderful and weird phenomena of noticing the absence of thought, the beauty of something just being here, I decided to make a Peace Talk podcast Episode 132.
(These things just appear, I have no idea what’s going on).
What’s here, without our stories?
“The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.” ~ Tao Te Ching #1
Much love,
Grace
P.S. If you want to listen to the ten minute Peace Talk episode, head over HERE.