Chasing Squirrels

Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behaviours.  You are beneath the thinker.  You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.
Eckhart Tolle

Watching The Mind

I am learning to observe my mind. 

I see that I still slip back into mind stuff all the time, even when I am sitting in meditation.  My mind will run off.  For a minute or two, (I am really not sure how long), I am lost somewhere in thinking, feeling, creating story and identification for the "little me". 

At first, I don't even know I am lost because I am so absorbed in that mind stuff.  Thought, feeling  activity is like  a captivating movie. I am pulled into the drama on the screen...becoming the character.    I forget that I am actually the one sitting on the seat in the large and spacious theatre.

I do this running after and getting lost in mental drama, many times throughout the day and I also do it when I am attempting to be mindful or meditate.

With  more practice, however, I am getting better. During quiet stillness,  I can see when I run off (usually after the fact) and I gently call myself back to my breath, just as a dog owner  will call a dog  back to her side if he strays too far away. Attention returns and I focus again. I focus on the breath going in and the breath going out.  I focus on my inner body sensations.  I focus on the quiet stillness as I  very, very gently release myself into the pauses between clouds of thought and breath.

When I am fairly centered again,  I will still see the thought activity, passing like clouds before me,  but I will  not feel the urge to follow all thoughts. My goal is not to stop this mental  activity. That, I know is beyond me. My goal is to stay with the breath of vacancy for as long as I can.

I am getting better at focusing my mind during seated meditation and mindfulness and even during daily activities. I usually, for the most part, can focus on breath, the moment, what is truly important and stay fairly centered.  That is  until a real demanding physical sensation, life circumstance or mental movement catches my attention and off I go after it. 

A Dog in Training

I am like a dog in training, I guess. I am learning to stay centered but am still unable to restrain myself from running after the noisiest squirrels that run before my mind's eye.  I need some mind training.  My training is not to stop the squirrels.  I have little control over them.  I must let them do what squirrels do.  I must let my thoughts do what thoughts do.

The biggest part of my training is to just be observant, to catch  myself running off and to calmly but firmly say "Come!"  When my mind returns to center, I need to make it "Sit!" and "Check me!"  so it stays focused on the "master" or the "trainer." I will go off and I will bring myself back...that is what this practice is really about.

Questions About Who is Training and who is Being Trained

That means then, that in my proverbial head, there is more than one person, more than one me, more than one self.  There is the me that needs to be trained and the  me that is doing the training. Who is the one that runs off and gets lost all the time?  And who is  one who stays centered?  Who is doing the training?  Who is the observer and who is observed?

"Little me" and Ego Mind

I am learning from all my studying and self inquiry that it is the ego part of me that needs training. It is the part of me that is much too identified with thinking and physical world "stuff".  It is the part of me that sees itself as a separate wave on a vast and mighty ocean, forgetting that it is the ocean.  It is the part of me that fears and does whatever it can to protect itself.  It is the part of me that gets me striving, doing incessantly, grasping, clinging, resisting because it doesn't feel whole and complete as it is.  It is the part of me that foolishly focuses attention "out there".  It is the part of me, then,  that makes me suffer. I will call it "little me".

Little me  is the "monkey mind" that controls most of our lives today.

Little me is the animal in our proverbial heads  constantly  running off and dragging the rest of us along.  Thoughts themselves are like squirrels the dog sees. Our minds will go off after them like they were tangible objects.

The Consequences of Running Off

The untrained dog will suffer the consequences of going after everything that runs before it just like we will suffer the consequences for going after our thoughts that run before our mind's eyes.   We will get stressed, and drained from the activity without ever truly catching what we go after.  Even if we do catch it, there will always be another squirrel or object or thought that grabs our attention...and off we go in another direction.

We won't find happiness through chasing.  Just the opposite. We could get reprimanded and in trouble from others for our unfavorable behaviours...suffering their wrath and social sanctions (relationship breakdowns etc) .We will be constantly running, striving, chasing and possibly defending and attacking "our territory" because of fear-based aggression, never catching what it is we think we are chasing.  Because we are not focused on what is happening in the moment, so focused on the object before us, we miss so much of Life and can even get hurt doing so ( how many dogs get got my cars when they chase after something?)

Most sadly, we can get lost if we chase too far away from home. We will forget who we really are and Where we came from. We then may become confused and disorientated, lost and lonely. We will long for that quiet home, we really never wanted to leave. 

Chasing after our thoughts, then,  is not the healthiest thing to do    We need to somehow train "little me", the mind...  to calmly walk beside us, instead of yanking and painfully pulling us along.

An Object to Be Observed

Little me is an object we  can observe in action.  

My mind  is actually an object. Hmmm!  It  observes and chases after other objects like  thoughts derived from observing "things" in the physical world with the  five senses and interpreting their meaning for me.  

There are soooo many thoughts, so many perceptions that it is easy to get lost in the thought chasing.

If we want to get back home and learn to stay there we need to realize that the mind that runs off  is being observed a  Subject.  It can be called back to training again and again by this observer. There is something observing.

Self or "I"

Then who is calling it back?  Who is the "master" , the "Alpha" training my mind? Who is the subject?  The Observer of my mind?

It isn't little me, the person "I think I am because I think". The thinking I have been doing has been getting me in trouble by  taking me away from the "Master". 

It isn't the character in that drama I keep getting lost in because the subject is pulling "me' back from that when it catches me straying...therefore it isn't the thoughts, the feelings and the memories I chase after.

It isn't the mind that is running off because "I" am watching the mind run off.

It cannot be both the one watching and the one being watched, can it?  It cannot be the one training and the one being trained, can it?

Who is the "I" that is watching the " me" run off?  Who is the "I" that is calling "me" back from mind activity to the peaceful center of home?

 I am going to call It, as the yogis do, for now...knowing that what we call It isn't important...Self. (Now the Buddhists would not use the word Self...in fact ...in Buddhist teaching there is just no-self.  But again it all has to do with getting lost  in concepts and naming...This trainer, this Observer, this subject is not an object.  When we refer to It with a name, be it  "Self"or "I"  we are objectifying It...if we objectify It...who is the subject  watching It?  )

No Distinction

Isn't it obvious, that this Self, no-self, thing that cannot be named, is something far greater than the mind, far wiser and much more benevolent? It would take something very Great to be patient in the observing and training of these wild, monkey minds most of us have. After all the mess we have made, all It asks is that we "Come!" "Sit!" and "Be Quiet!" so we can receive the Love that will stop us from wanting to run after anything.

When we get there to that place where our minds are calm and well trained... we will realize the ultimate truth, so the transcended write. We will realize  that there is no distinction between the trainer, the trained or the training after-all.  There is no distinction between the subject, the object or the observed.  And There is no distinction between knower, knowledge and known. (Vishnu-devananda, pg 9)

I have not reached that realization yet.  I am still chasing squirrels. :)

All is well!

Swami Vishnu-devananda (1988) The complete Illustrated Book of Yoga. New York: Three Rivers Press.