#thought labels

[trixclibrarian]

If there is more to experience than what I can hold, conjure, manipulate, in my conscious mind -- if there is more to experience than thought -- if there is more to experience than language-based thought, I want to live in ways that move toward expanding my conscious mind to include more, more of that other stuff.

It means detaching from the thoughts enough to recognize that they are incomplete - that they are not everything. Because thoughts (and symbols) are not everything (in some ways they are not anything) but built into our modern way of life is the tendency to seem them as everything. And that means every thought is laced and marinated in an illusion, a self-serving illusion. 

In this way, regardless of the content, regardless of the label applied, all thoughts have at their core the same escapist fantasy : that thinking and thought can alone bring and be the harbingers of worthy living. That you can think your way into a decent life. 

So all my escapist fantasies are essentially the same. That something other than my whole fully experiencing complicated and complete self can bring me a full rich life experience. Sometimes the fantasy is that money would eliminate all the difficult parts of being me. Sometimes the fantasy is that love or adoration or welcome touch or the right person or recognition or appreciation, or vindication or validation or funding is the simple external ingredient I need to have a life that suits me perfectly, constantly always. 

Basically, the fantasy is that some change in external condition could possibly make my life completely easy and better in one fell swoop of neat. That better would equal easy? Vice versa? It’s all very... shifty shady this fantasy. 

This isn’t to say that I cannot imagine true honest, not-just-an-illusion circumstances that might suit me well, maybe even better, than my current ones. Sometimes I imagine living with many of the same difficulties that are me but doing it in the context of a small close knit community. Feeling supported and valued and... not afraid of connection. Or, maybe afraid, but held in my fear and supported in facing it in whatever way/s I find I need. I imagine living irl and collaborating daily with people who share the same values and beliefs as me. I imagine being able to give and receive honest attention and respond improvisationally. I imagine feeling connected but still free to be me -- connected because I’m free to be. 

But even these fantasies... are still escapist. Because I truly sense that bits and pieces, at least, of these things are already in existence, in my life, and available to me. The work is work of my own, of my practices of attention, and my practices of receiving. My practices of recognizing and responding to and with the best actions worthy of improvising. 

The truth is I don’t really want any fantasy, not any specific fantasy. I don’t want to escape. I want to dig in with life, deep. I want to have a sense I’m not alone even when I’m allowed to indulge my comfortable lonely.  I want to feel safe in my sameness and in my idiosyncrasy and in my dynamic ever-evolving. I want to reciprocate and be. Mutually.

[trixclibrarian]

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.