Not understanding myself
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
After months of observing my deeper self, I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t really understand myself. When my intention is to be a certain way, my impulses and emotions express something different. My thoughts then stand back and say, no no no, this is not how it’s supposed to be…
It’s as if I am at war with myself on some deep level, and I don’t understand how it comes to be so. It is like a thought or an impulse actually is an action, I am acting all the time, and by objecting in thought, conflicting actions arise all the time. It is only in a total acceptance that I find peace.
But this essentially brings my deeper self to a full stop, and so my surface mind becomes quiet and placid. This happens when I am awake. But when I’m asleep all kind of contradictory impulses manifest.
Is it even possible to comprehend ones own mind?
Comments
I wondered...
Perhaps you are starting to see the fallacy of any identity.
Is the mind or the deeper self, more than a dream production of the human condition?
Can an illusion ever be dispelled by being given a better gilding?
A comprehension of ones own mind is first compromised by the false belief that there is a someone who actually owns it and secondly by the uncomfortableness that arises when
our own mind turns out to be little more than a deluded librarian assuming job advancements far beyond what it is capable of completing.
The degree to which this can be examined seems to be dependent on the degree to which one can stop identifying with ones mentality. Here, equanimity offers the potential objectivity that is needed to see beyond the innate investments of our own dream productions.
Thanks @how for your thoughtful words, it is not easy to see your own mind turn into comparative quicksand when you examine it…
It seems to be so. I always thought of the mind as a kind of machine, capable of both following logical progression and of intuitive leaps in a variety of domains. But that seems to only be the surface…
A deluded librarian indeed, not a bad way of putting it. Certainly not the shining edifice which I thought was there.
The very process of examining it seems to put considerable strain on things.
Identifying with the delusion of identification could do that but I often catch glimpses of the shining edifice in all of us in your posts for whatever that is worth.
And I thank you for that.
The first question that comes to 'mind' (funnily enough) is "What is mind?" ..
Thus have I heard, the mind is "Knowing" (that which knows) and it already knows itself...I dare say much better than the so-called aggregated self which arises from it and which is trying to understand it as a separate entity...
It's like the knower trying to know what it already knows so to speak...
"There was a young man who said though, it seems I know that I know...But what I would like to see is the "I" that knows me when i know that I know that I know"
Which leads to confusion ...and....
When the intellect ventures into where it does not belong...it becomes lost in its own confusion
Sometimes there is shine, sometimes reflection, sometimes intentional or unintentional distortion. On the whole the greatest achievement for many of us may be transparency. In other words ... No mind, no returning ripples, a sort of 'stealth spirituality' of non-cluttered calm.
I'll join.
Shit mate, you're lucky you've got one! I lost mine ages ago....!
I think it’s like this: the conflicts I encounter when looking more deeply into the mind are a sign that at that deeper level I am no longer total in my being, there is basically a schizophrenic self living beneath the everyday. There seems to be a degree of calming the mind that I have not yet touched.
I wonder how to approach it…
Perhaps...the very idea that the mind can or should be calmed is really just another cause for its own continued excitability.
A delusional validation of some fundamental changing of our minds may seem to be an appropriate step to take when in fact a practice is really about finding some equanimity with our identity of this mind.
The mind can actually be left to the foolishness of its own myopia within its own sandbox as long as one equally allows all the other sense gates an unfettered experience of the unlimited existence beyond those sandbox walls.
What you suggest as schizophrenia might really just be some leave taking of the minds own long-term shortsightedness; when a wider reality is allowed to start intruding over the minds boundary lines.
This is not really about finding a better mental identity. It's about discovering how all of our delusion is actually predicated upon the formation of any identity.
While a calming of the mind can sometimes be a side benefit of a practice, I might humbly suggest that some meditative transcendence of our identity with it would be the way that I'd try to approach it.
What I refer to as a schizophrenic self I mean a broken self, the fragments of which are at war with each other, generating contradictory impulses and not truly being whole.
I’m not sure whether it’s really about identity at all. I don’t own these words, it’s just observations of my own mental behaviour. Sometimes it manifests as a calm lake with deep waters, and sometimes it is all fighting with itself.
Thank you for the tip. I’ve spent a little time looking at identity (scratching the tip of the iceberg) and it seems like some of the contradictions do have roots in thinking things should be a certain way. Perhaps it will bear fruit…
I am beginning to think this has something to do with approaching spirituality in a certain way. I’ve noted in another topic that ‘spirituality has a tendency to tell you what to do’, and if you read books of different sources you tend to get mixed up and contradictory directives.
Certainly not reading spiritual literature, doing no analysis, only light meditation has lead to a general calming, a slowing down. I think that is the way, a very gentle way and no strong directives just to let the mind settle.
If you do not understand yourself. stop trying so hard. While self-analysis isnecessary and ok to a point, the more you try, the more difficult it becomes. It is anti-intuitive, perhaps, but you will understand yourself more when you let go. Your mind is not locked into a set path as you just carry out your daily life. The clarity come as you are doing something, mentally or physically. You open up as you discover yourself anew. In releasing yourself, you discover or capture more of yourself without the baggage of preconception.
There is always a caviat: If you need professional/medical help - get it. Buddhism does not discount science or medicine. Buddhism is whole person centered in that the Dr will do his/her part and you will do yours.
Peace to all