What is the voice in my head communicating with?

MellowViper

I was meditating and trying to empty my mind when every so often I'd catch myself asking rhetorical questions. I'd even give myself answers and then ask another question. What's this dialogue in my head between? Is it like between the left and right hemisphere? Is it more than two components communicating? I'm trying to figure this out. One side seems to be honest more than the other too. One will just give me intuitive, selfless answers in the form of (mostly) non-verbal information where the other side seems to be more sensitive, defensive, and predominately communicates verbally. I'm not crazy or anything since I know for a fact they are in my head, and I'm pretty sure the latter is my own ego, but I wanna learn a bit more about what's going on. Are there any Buddhist concepts this can relate to?

caz

The voice in your head is what is known as delusion. Dont worry everyone has them, Its the same set of minds that cause us suffering. Some people listen to these voices and can act upon them but it is good to learn that they are just aspects of delusion arising in the mind.

KarmaDondrupTashi

Sounds like the mind is being pulled back to reveal the mind essence.

federica

Pardon....?

That's tosh. What is the essence of Mind, if not Mind itself?

KarmaDondrupTashi

Mind (sem) is different from the essence of mind (sems nyid). The former is thoughts, the latter is emptiness. Entire practices exist to distinguish the one from the other e.g. rushen practice in dzogchen.

TreeLuvr87

It's all the same voice, even though it sounds like dialogue between two. It's just monkey mind. Just accept the voices and let them know that you're not there to pay attention to them - you're there to pay attention to the empty mind. Just keep coming back to breath or whatever your focus is.

Talisman

They are verbal fabrications. They arise dependent upon ignorance. You should recognize them in relation to the four noble truths.

-These are verbal fabrications
-The cause of verbal fabrications is ignorance
-The cessation of verbal fabrications is caused by the cessation of ignorance
-The path leading to the cessation of ignorance is this noble 8-fold path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration

Yishai

Mind (sem) is different from the essence of mind (sems nyid). The former is thoughts, the latter is emptiness. Entire practices exist to distinguish the one from the other e.g. rushen practice in dzogchen.

Kinda like how a building(mind) is different from its foundation(mind essence/essence mind), but still, the foundation is part of the building?

Trying to understand.

taiyaki

‎"Your life has been designed to work, and your hidden potential
contains what you seek and all that you need in your life.
It is OK to be who you are and to choose what you have.
The Quakers call it the "still, small voice within,"
that place of full awareness within that is in touch with
the entire universe and is the source of wisdom.
In effect, you don't have to keep searching for confirmation
by focusing on being someone else or being somewhere else.
There is no place else to be and nothing else to get.
You will be able to grasp the levers of change in your life
when you can allow yourself to be present in the moment,
accept the world as it is, and trust that everything is as it was intended to be."

- Ari Kiev

Talisman

Once again, for those who have either not studied the Dharma or refused to acknowledge it when it's right in their face:

They [the voices in your head] are verbal fabrications. They arise dependent upon ignorance. You should recognize them in relation to the four noble truths.

-These are verbal fabrications
-The cause of verbal fabrications is ignorance
-The cessation of verbal fabrications is caused by the cessation of ignorance
-The path leading to the cessation of ignorance is this noble 8-fold path: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration

Visakha: And what, lady, are bodily fabrications, what are verbal
fabrications, what are mental fabrications?
Sister Dhammadinn›: In-&-out breathing is bodily, bound up with the body,
therefore is it called a bodily fabrication. Having directed one’s thought and
evaluated (the matter), one breaks into speech. Therefore directed thought &
evaluation are called verbal fabrications. Perception & feeling are mental, bound
up with the mind. Therefore perception & feeling are called mental fabrications.

MN 44

Yishai

@Talisman

You are on a site called New Buddhist... you should expect some to not have thorough (or even basic in some instances) knowledge of the Dhamma (especially canonical text). Thank you, however, for the excerpt. Most informative and very very appreciated.

I understand that repetition can get tiring and frustrating but bear with us. We all start from ignorance, and I, for one, appreciate when people help me carry the heavy burden it is. So, thanks.

taiyaki

@MellowViper

you might be accessing your intuition. the best way to tell if it is something deeper like intuition or if it just your subtle super ego talking is to question what is asserted or arises.

if you can question and find your mind arguing back or thinking too much then it was super ego.

if you question it and all you get is silence then that my friend is intuition.

intuition can manifest via a small voice in your head at times.

take it for what it is. either you listen to it or you don't. the choice is yours.

KarmaDondrupTashi

Kinda like how a building(mind) is different from its foundation(mind essence/essence mind), but still, the foundation is part of the building?

Trying to understand.

There are many metaphors in TB to distinguish deluded, ordinary mind (sem) from the nature of mind (sem nyid), or Buddha-nature.

E.g. in the Uttaratantra the deluded mind is compared to mud covering a jewel, clouds obscuring the sky, and impurities in water.

The nature of Buddha-nature is explained by means of three examples those of a jewel, the sky, and water. ... The dharmakaya is like a jewel because it is totally free of any impurities. It is like a cloudless sky because the sky is by nature free of clouds. It is like water because water is naturally very pure. The impurities found in water are not part of the nature of the water. In the same way, Buddhanature is perfectly pure.
Thrangu Rinpoche

Sem is discursive, conceptual, etc. Sem nyid is free from extremes and beyond concepts and expressions.

taiyaki

are you talking about consciousness without surface?

Talisman

@yishai

I didn't mean to sound so aggressive, I'm glad I could help you understand.

Metta

DaltheJigsaw

wonderful thread!
I have these dialogues in my dreams as well.

Yishai

@yishai

I didn't mean to sound so aggressive, I'm glad I could help you understand.

Metta

"Once again..." just made me think that you were getting tired of saying it. Oh connotation... you change every word. :buck:

I would always take verbal chatter and talk with a mouthful of salt if not totally ignored. Any time I listen to my 'monkey mind' it leads me to do stupid things that I regret later. Like taiyaki said though, sometimes it is intuition.

MellowViper

@MellowViper

you might be accessing your intuition. the best way to tell if it is something deeper like intuition or if it just your subtle super ego talking is to question what is asserted or arises.

if you can question and find your mind arguing back or thinking too much then it was super ego.

if you question it and all you get is silence then that my friend is intuition.

intuition can manifest via a small voice in your head at times.

take it for what it is. either you listen to it or you don't. the choice is yours.

My mind argues a lot with itself. A lot of times it is my social sensibilities fighting my personal feelings which I guess would be super-ego. I think its a sign of some type of neurosis. However the more still voice that communicates to me on less verbal terms probably is intuition.

Talisman

It's all still "fabrications." Mental fabrications are any form of perception or feeling. Verbal fabrications are any form of directed thought and evaluation. Bodily fabrications are anything that is bodily or bound up with the body. (The body is form, specifically the 4 great elements and the form dependent upon the 4 great elements.)

Fabrications are both one of the 5 clinging aggregates and the second chain of dependent origination. Although fabrications lead to suffering, they can be used to direct the mind toward relinquishment and liberation. Proper directed thought and evaluation used to calm both bodily and mental fabrications is necessary for acheiving the 1st Jhana.

MellowViper

It's all the same voice, even though it sounds like dialogue between two. It's just monkey mind. Just accept the voices and let them know that you're not there to pay attention to them - you're there to pay attention to the empty mind. Just keep coming back to breath or whatever your focus is.

It all is one interconnected network of neurons, just as the physical world is one interconnected network of potential relationships. However these different parts of the mind seem to be mortal enemies at times, just like how it is, person to person, in the external world. If there's enough of a disconsonance between these components, I could see why some people have split personality disorder.

I'm trying to get more of a grasp of my own thought processes though to be at a better position to where I can embrace the empty mind, the state of awareness at harmony with itself and its surroundings.

MellowViper

It's all still "fabrications." Mental fabrications are any form of perception or feeling. Verbal fabrications are any form of directed thought and evaluation. Bodily fabrications are anything that is bodily or bound up with the body. (The body is form, specifically the 4 great elements and the form dependent upon the 4 great elements.)

Fabrications are both one of the 5 clinging aggregates and the second chain of dependent origination. Although fabrications lead to suffering, they can be used to direct the mind toward relinquishment and liberation. Proper directed thought and evaluation used to calm both bodily and mental fabrications is necessary for acheiving the 1st Jhana.

That's weird that they use the term "verbal for any type of directed thought. That's extremely relevant to the topic. So by the body being "form", does that have anything to do with the way energy is slowed to become matter and spaced and composed specific ways to form the physical body and physical world it inhabits?

Yah, were using these fabrications, these abstract, verbal symbols that are decoded by the human mind to direct our selves to greater enlightenment right now as we type

Talisman

Body being form means only this: the 4 great elements and the form dependent upon the 4 great elements. The four great elements are earth (solidity), water (fluidity), air (motion and energy), fire (heat). The form dependent upon these elements is the human form, the hand form, the skin form, the face form, etc.

Jeffrey

If I hear my smoke detectors go off technically they are a fabrication. But I should listen to them so that I may help sentient beings by preserving my flesh. But I agree in meditation to just let the voices be. You don't have to 'do' anything with them. Just let them be.

In waking life its an art to deal with voices without 1) listening and being dominated 2) reacting against/shutting out the voice which is stressful because it is rejecting your experience. The middle road is to let the voice be and rest in the spaciousness of experience.

NomaDBuddha

What is the voice in your head ?? Oh, it's the little man who tells you to do that, or not to do that. Sometimes, it tends to get things wrong by getting in contradiction with yourself, and that's when doubt appears.