Tao Sunday-on-Monday: Your Mind, Your Evil Twin

Perhaps the Tao that is on Monday is not the Eternal Tao, eh? ;)

Today, for reasons unpleasantly timely, I’d like to break the ice on the concept of your mind as your evil twin. Rather than ramble on in prose, however, here are some individual things to consider about that concept. This is an introductory post, so these are just things to think about (or not, heh) — they’ll be explored in more detail later. One thing I’ve learned is that too much pondering this stuff can give you a truly disturbing case of the giggles.

• How often does your mind think things that you don’t want it to?
• How often do you even notice what you think? About what percentage of the time is your mind operating without your input?
• If you listen, can you notice repetitive thoughts that you have all the time, involuntarily? Are many of them negative? Where do you think they come from? Can you shut them off?
• Can you stop thinking altogether? For how long?
• Why is it so hard to shut your mind off? Does it have its own momentum? Are you in control of it or not?
• If you come to the conclusion that you’re capable of being in control of your mind, but aren’t usually, why not? Is there an obstacle to being fully in control?
• How often does your mind think something with the word “I” or “me” in it? Does it often seem to reinforce its identity as you?
• Do you think it really is you?
• If your mind is really you, then who is it that can step in and control your mind, and stop your thinking, even if only a little? Is that someone besides you? Or is it you who can exert influence on your mind, meaning that your mind is not you?
• Another question on that: If your mind is really you, then when you stop thinking, do you cease to exist?
• What might happen if you stopped thinking for an hour? A day? Do you think anybody does? Could they function if they did?

Now consider a few of my answers, though of course you don’t have to accept them:

• The mind is a machine, a powerful computer. It is programmed from birth, and before, with many things over which we have no control.
• It has built up momentum over the course of our individual and collective lives.
• It sees things analytically, so sees us as separate from everything and everyone, and is therefore threatened by the world’s insistence that we’re all basically one mishmash. If “oneness” is true, then our carefully-constructed “selves” don’t exist.
• The mind often thinks of “I” and “me” to reinforce its separateness and build the details of its constructed identity.
• It is possible, though difficult, to monitor one’s own thoughts, to influence them, and even to stop thinking altogether.
• Therefore, the mind is not the person. The person is what watches the mind.
• Therefore, much of our thinking is the paranoid mumblings of a scared ego built on what is essentially a sentient, runaway computer program.
• To stop thinking is the core of meditation. It turns off the constant noise of the false-self-generator so that “you” can actually “be you” for a change.
• This isn’t to say the mind is necessarily bad; it’s a powerful tool and if we were actually using it, it would be marvelous. The sad truth is, in almost everyone it’s dysfunctional and out of control, and rather than us using it, it’s using us.

Peace and integrity,
-PD