The Self-Liberation of Thoughts
We examine a natural extension of awake awareness. Thoughts self-liberate once we stop reacting to them. This takes practice.
One of the profound outcomes of the meditation path is the self-liberation of thoughts. We will first consider how normal thinking works in the mind. Using the concept of the three poisons, we’ll see how clamping down on thinking affirms the sense of self. Next, we will look at how an initial glimpse of awake awareness lays the foundation for changes in our relationship to thinking. Following this, we can apply the teaching that thoughts are self-liberating!
“Normal” thinking
The three poisons are relevant to everyday thinking. Desire, avoidance, and indifference make up the content of our thinking most of the time. We think about what we want and how to get more of it; about what we don’t want and how to get less of it, and about how to distract ourselves from what we perceive as boring and irrelevant. The three poisons affirm our sense of self.
As we develop our meditation practice, we begin to notice that thinking is required to maintain our self-focus. In fact, identity requires a combination of thinking and belief in the thoughts that occur. The sense of self requires a belief in the drama that’s up on the screen. It is often a profound moment when we first begin to see through these thoughts. As we stop taking our thoughts so damn seriously, we naturally move towards liberation.
When we clamp down on our thoughts, conceptualization happens. Watch this the next time you meditate: each thought that arises becomes part of a larger drama, with premade stories that reinforce what you prefer, reject, or ignore. Concepts proliferate into a bloom of identity. This is me. That is certainly not me!
In this way, thoughts are the building blocks that the mind uses to build the world we see. The mind, now filled with image, memory, and desire, projects an individualized world that we experience as our life.
Makes sense, right? This is how identity forms in all of us, whether or not we are on a spiritual path, whether or not we meditate.
Thoughts within awake awareness
Initial experiences of awake awareness allow us to change our relationship to thoughts. We glimpse our present experience happening within a vast spaciousness. Expanding that initial glimpse, we learn to include more and more of what we experience within that spaciousness. We gain experience with knowing sights, sounds, textures, and body sensations as awake awareness. This is crucial; there is a vast and vital path of practice that is available after we have an initial experience of awake awareness!
For most of us, remaining in awake space while thoughts are arising represents a significant challenge. At first, it is easier to remain in awake awareness with body or sensory sensations. This in itself is a great practice: remaining in awake awareness while experiencing every sight, every sound, every texture.
And of course, thinking happens within that awake space too. As practice continues, the preference for one thought to another lessens, then disappears. Thinking arises with no-one to prefer this or that. Like everything in awake space, thinking is vividly experienced as a vivid and empty essence.
Thoughts are self-liberating!
So we meditate for however long. After a series of hard battles, we come to our senses, realizing that attempting to remove, block, or eliminate thinking doesn’t work. From that initial glimpse as awake awareness, we begin to build up our glimpsing muscle. How does this happen?
When thoughts occur within awake space, the empty nature of thinking is revealed. This has nothing to do with a conceptual understanding. Instead, we experience thoughts from this vast openness, everything arising as one thing, one taste.
This is a practice. Very important. To clarify how this happens, let’s apply a sensory experience. You are meditating and there’s the sound of a lawnmower. When touching awake awareness, you are vividly present with what is happening while being part of this vast expanse. You aren’t shutting out the sound nor are you allowing the sound. It is all a package of thisness, thusness, and suchness!
There is no need to glom on, reject, or ignore any thought. Instead, the vividness of each thought is experienced from emptiness/spaciousness.
It’s simple but not easy: when I no longer have a stake in the game, I no longer have to react. As the clinging for this or that disappears, the sense of self releases into the vast spaciousness. What remains is curiosity, openness, and a vivid aliveness. The steps toward liberation become crystal clear. You can do this. When we first awaken, we become aware of living in a dream. The freedom we are speaking about now is like a dream come true.
I could write a similar post about the self-liberation of emotion. I’m too damn scared. HA! Fetch the Bolt Cutters!
I’m reading some cool stuff about the self-liberation of thought. Most prominently, Vajra Heart Revisited: Teachings on the Path of Trekcho by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. I also gained insight running up that hill into the three poisons and the sense of self when reading Spectrum of Ecstasy by Ngakpa Chogyam and Khandro Dechen.