Thoughts are not passing clouds.
The case for interrogating your inner voice.
“Thought creates our world, and then says, ‘I didn’t do it.’” ~ David Bohm
I wonder when the idea first emerged to treat one’s thoughts as passing clouds (no, Buddha didn’t come up with it). Yes, clouds are an apt metaphor in that thoughts do come and go, but it misses an essential truth of the mind. And that symbolic cloudiness is not serving people well.
Thoughts are not pointless, haphazard occurrences to dismiss. Thoughts have intent, complex or simple. They arise from unconscious conditioning and are motivated—and are trying to motivate you—to deal with their erroneous ideas about reality.
If you have a problem falling asleep because your thoughts stubbornly replay a negative experience, it’s because your thoughts believe that there is a problem to be solved. Ditto if you’re obsessed with your appearance, status, wealth or relationships. Your thoughts want you to do something about it… and now!
And what exactly do your thoughts want you to do? Do they want you to address a recent encounter? Do they want you to work out, work more, get the promotion, or get rich? Your thoughts aren’t really sure. But they do know what they don’t want you to do and that’s to stop listening to them, to see through the filter of identity and social conditioning and let life unfold calmly and naturally.
So how do you get your habitual thoughts to leave you alone? Will simply watching them come and go or willfully ignoring them do the trick?
Your thoughts are like an overbearing parent. They will continue to advise you as long as they believe in the value of their counsel. However, if you are vigilant about your thoughts and inquire deeply into their validity and then, through your own reasoning process, let them know that they are misguided and valueless, they will ease off. And eventually, they’ll peter out.
I know people who live with a perpetually cloudy mental world, an inner Scotland, and many have sought relief through both meditation and medication. But what they haven’t done is deep and persistent interrogation, which is the ticket to awareness. Assume that your unprompted thoughts are untrue, and then search diligently for the truth.
The Buddha encouraged students to be observant of their thoughts, to keep a weather eye open. In fact, the word meditation means to ponder, to think over, to inquire deeply. And so if you really dig the cloud metaphor, then heed Buddha’s advice and train yourself to be a skilled meteorologist, for as Krishnamurti wrote:
“Without self-knowledge, there is no right thinking, and without right thinking, there is no foundation for the discovery of truth.”
Stay passionate!
Thinker…prompt thyself
Tom, are you familiar with the Work of Byron Katie? Her simple process has us examine thoughts with simple questions: 1. Is it true, and can you be absolutely sure it is true? 2. How do you react when you believe that thought? 3. Who would you be if you could no longer believe that thought? And, finally, 4. Turn that thought around to its opposite and see if that is just as true or truer than the original thought.
The best way to do this is to write it down on paper. But after you'd done this process for years and years, you hear a thought in your mind telling you something, and you flash through those questions in an instant. Sometimes the response is as fast as. "Nah, that ain't true!!" and you are back in the present moment. It takes some time to get to that place, and sometimes you are still seduced by negative, limiting, or hurtful thoughts. But you are right, if only our thoughts were just like harmless clouds we could ignore, we'd all be enlightened.