Wanted to write a few notes about this thought labeling, this sorting {out) of experience that is my meditation practice at this moment.
There is no attempt to empty my mind of thought. The only hope is a release of the desire for control. A joyous surrender to the ebb and flow of not being in control and still practicing careful attention. Attention to what is exactly as it is, with absolutely zero thought to anything other than... attending it. Closely.
The tricky bit is that thoughts are... viscous. They stick together, like snot. They string and drown and muffle out all else - especially in a culturally moist environ that pulls for this sort of thick floaty shit ness. Where we all live, mostly, I guess.
So to help separate and dry out and parcel out the slick snot flow of thought (flowing through the hairy nose of thought) I imagine meditation as sorting each thought. Seeing it instead of joining with it. Noticing it, as I remove it from my subjective frame into an objective frame. And then, not judging or banishing it, just objectively labeling it -- as a procedure for letting it go. Like a lego piece, one it is labeled, i put it in the appropriate and pile and that helps me let go.
Thought labels, then, are the piles I use during meditation as a mechanism for letting thought go.
So I wanted to make some notes about these labels. What the specific labels are (always in flux) in terms of content and how they are in terms of process (dynamic and, duh, obviously, repetitive - recursively, nested spirally, so).
A list of label like a table full of piles in naturally ocurring categories as they arise.
Creating and adopting the list involves a sweet spot of specificity and generality and the capacity for universal proportions in both metaphor and object exactness.
There is of course a temptation to just label them all, the same, (basically : “unwanted”):
--- self-centered thought ---
To just be done with it and leave it at that. A big pile of (language) blocks and hope that some other stuff arises I can attend to along with that junk. But that doesn’t help much. Just the one label leaves me with... thoughts about the label. Thoughts always recurse -- matryoshka dollness.
And equal temptation is to add just one other category: useful functional (ie good, allowed, permitted) thoughts. But when you are meditating..? There really are no useful thoughts - the point is to pay attention without thought*. (*skating is so much easier than sitting still for this if you have a good rink and can stomach the bruising and foolishness-feeling expsense).
The next temptation is to make a lot of piles. To separate and create labels of great specificity and detail. And that becomes obviously a whole nother layer of distracting, abstract, symbolic, self-centered thought. It becomes about how good a labeler you are -- it becomes symbolic instead of immediate.
I avoid all of these. I also avoid any need to make my labels exclusive, or exhaustive.
The most important thing, critical to avoid adding additional layers of selfl-ceneteredness (self-consciousness) to the thoughts, is to free the labels of judgement. All judgement in the label must be banished. The labels are not to be punishing nor are they a form of approval fix of any kind. They are just piles to set thoughts aside in so we can see... what else. Keep reminding myself, eh?
Also, the set of labels is dynamic. I do not have any expectations or wishes or hopes or ideas about how it will change, only a commitment to notice. To notice as the labels and the process change. Because this noticing will eventually morph into the noticing of other stuff - non-thought ways of attending. They will rise up without me at first noticing them, but because I am practicing attention and it is therefore naturally expanding at the periphery..? I will* notice them! So... whatever labels arise, I work with that. The labels and process, recurring, practice, but also spontaneous.
Here is a sample of some of the labels I notice coming up:
dysfunctional family thoughts
work thoughts
angry-vindictive thoughts
evidence presenting thoughts (that i am good, bad, victimized, abused improving, unworthy, worhty, that my feelings are legit or not or etc etc etc... -- any stupid evidence presenting thoughts)
escape-rescue fantasy thoughts
deservedness thoughts
dissatisfied thoughts
obligation/planning/task thoughts
drama/expectation thoughts
thought of owed and owing
pride thoughts
fear mongering thoughts (worry)
compulsive thoughts
interpretative/assumptive thoughts
See!! Damn. Look how much overlap. And how much... unnecessaryness and not-worth-of-really-bothering-with-ness is involved.
This is a big part of the whole deal for me right now. As I keep doing this... it gets less interesting, my thoughts feel less important, regardless, anyway. Whatever. And as that happens, as I keep sitting still and vacillating between the sounds inside me and the sounds and sensations outside and around me, literally, in each passing moment? Cracks in the unnecessaryness start to happen. And what comes through the cracks in the bs thoughts... is richer. Harder and richer and less controllable and more real and... the air i want. The how I want to live. The sensations, the body, the access to... life, that I’m in it allk for.
The labels gather the boredom up and make cracks in it and that’s where the real life is starting to come in at.