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No one has ever been able to control his thinking, although people may tell the story of how they have. I don't let go of my thoughts-I meet them with understanding. Then they let go of me.
It is easy to be swept away by some overwhelming feeling, so it's helpful to remember that any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, "You're caught in the dream."
Any stressful thought that you have about the planet, for example, shows you where you are stuck, where your energy is being exhausted in not fully meeting life as it is, without conditions.
As you inquire into issues and turn judgments around, you come to see that every perceived problem appearing "out there" is really nothing more than a misperception within your own thinking.
Without an uninvestigated story, there's only the perfection of life appearing as itself. You can always go inside and find the beauty that's revealed after the pain and fear are understood.
It's not easy to find your own way when you believe that you need love, approval, appreciation, or anything from your family. It's particularly hard when you want them to see things your way.
The most important relationship is the mind's relationship with itself. In other words, the ultimate - and, really, the only - relationship you have is the relationship with your own thoughts.
Some children are afraid to die because their parents are afraid to die. My own children have come to understand that it's totally okay with me if they die. They don't have to live for my sake.
For me, the future lives only here in my mind, as thoughts and images, just as the past does, and I love those thoughts and the world that it produces. I am entirely optimistic about the future.
When we believe in our thoughts, when we tell ourselves a story, we suffer. 'My husband doesn't respect me.' 'I should be thinner.' Those are stories. When there's no story, there's no suffering.
We begin to not be human, as we've known it, any longer. But to be just creative minds and action, whereas right now we're confused minds and actions, and our environment mirrors that back to us.
If I think the environment in the world needs to be cleaned up, let me clean up my own environment. Let me clean up the environment in my head - let me work with that pollution and that ecosystem.
Those questions - when you think about a thought, when you're believing a thought or concept and you question it - you realize that it changes things. Every cell in your body is awake with inquiry.
We all think we have our personal favorites. But when I say, "People shouldn't steal - is it true?" Everyone in a room of, let's say, a thousand people all raise their hands and say, "That's true."
Inviting people to inquiry is much more powerful to me than describing my experience... When people hear me tell the story, they often say, "Oh my goodness, I get it. I get it!" But it's not enough.
Who I believed myself to be was a hopeless case. I would wake up in the mornings and notice I was still alive and breathing and hate God, hate myself, hate life, and contemplate ways of killing myself.
There's no one who can teach you except yourself. Each of us needs to look at what our belief system really consists of. Look at the concepts that come across your mind and just notice what you believe.
If our stressful thoughts aren't true, what does that leave? It leaves, "I am loveable" - the very thing I could never make myself believe, because "I'm unloveable" overrides it when the chips are down.
One morning in February 1986, out of nowhere, I experienced a realization. In an instant, I discovered that when I believed my stressful thoughts, I suffered, but when I questioned them, I didn't suffer.
One morning, in February 1986, out of nowhere, I experienced a realization. In an instant, I discovered that when I believed my stressful thoughts, I suffered, but when I questioned them, I didn't suffer.
You can never make yourself believe that you're loveable, however hard you try, because when the chips are down what you really believe rises to the surface of the mind to replace what you want to believe.
I have discovered that in every language and every country I have visited, there are no new stories. They're all recycled. The same stressful thoughts arise in each mind one way or another, sooner or later.
I havent had a single thought for 26 years. I have only understanding. Its somewhat complicated to understand that. Ive hardly ever spoken about it. Youre in a state of total peace of mind. A kind of nirvana.
To me, health is a balanced mind. A balanced mind knows how to get enough rest, how to eat properly, how to exercise. I have come out as just a balanced human being, and I don't know anything finer than that.
But when you think you're supposed to do something with it and imagine that you're the doer, that's pure delusion. Just follow your passion. Do what you love. Inquire, and have a happy life while you're doing it.
I haven't had a single thought for 26 years. I have only understanding. It's somewhat complicated to understand that. I've hardly ever spoken about it. You're in a state of total peace of mind. A kind of nirvana.
One morning as I lay sleeping on the floor, a cockroach crawled over my foot. And I opened my eyes out of this dead sleep - about a 43-year sleep - and in place of all that darkness was a joy that I can't describe.
Just because we love someone, we begin to notice that love is an experience and we have to do something with it. We don't have to marry people or date them because we care about them very deeply. It's an experience.
I could go on and on about how the statements and concepts that used to depress me now bring me joy, but that is not easily understood for people who think the way I used to think and believe what I used to believe.
I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be activists for peace. "If I feel peaceful," they say, "why would I bother taking action at all?"
When I was in my early forties, I slept with a loaded gun under my bed. Id become severely depressed in my thirties, and for almost a decade I spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and thoughts of suicide.
When I was in my early forties, I slept with a loaded gun under my bed. I'd become severely depressed in my thirties, and for almost a decade I spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and thoughts of suicide.
Mind is infinitely creative. And when it's not stuck, that's where the joy comes from. Something happens, and the way we think about it, understand it, see it, is actually hilarious, whereas before it used to depress us.
You might believe that it's only for their own good, but how does it feel when you try to manipulate the people you love? Are you teaching them that your love is conditional? Maybe through inquiry we can find another way.
I'm not in Iraq. I'm here in California. Have I had an argument with my husband today? Have I been at war with someone in my life today - or with myself? Let me work on that. That way war is ending somewhere in the world.
Our parents, our children, our spouses, and our friends will continue to press every button we have, until we realize what it is that we don't want to know about ourselves, yet. They will point us to our freedom every time.
You can't drop concepts. You can only shine a little flashlight on them as you do inquiry, an you see that what you thought was true wasn't. And when the truth is seen, there's nothing you can do to make the lie true for you again.
When you’re focused outside and believe that your problem is caused by someone else, rather than by your attachment to the story you’re believing in the moment, then you are your own victim, and the situation appears to be hopeless.
I love not rushing the process. Mind doesn't shift until it does, and when it does shift, it's right on time, not one second too late or too soon. People are like seeds waiting to sprout. We can't be pushed ahead of our own understanding.
And as long as we believe what we believe - until that is questioned - there's no progress as a human race. Again, we still have war. So, effective rehabilitation is to question what we believe. When that happens, everyone gets out of prison.
You can't have an up without a down. You can't have a left without a right. This is duality. If you have a problem, you must already have the solution. The question is, do you really want the solution, or do you want to perpetuate the problem?
The more you reveal, the more you have to question and the freer you get. Until, finally, you're absolutely exposed. And that leaves you in a fearless position, because you can work in the world without the fear of being found out. That is freedom.
When you realize that suffering and discomfort are the call to inquiry, you may actually begin to look forward to uncomfortable feelings. You may even experience them as friends coming to show you what you have not yet investigated thoroughly enough.
People try so hard to let go of their negative behaviors and thoughts, and it doesn't work, or it works only for a short time. I didn't let go of my negative thoughts; I questioned them, and then they let go of me, and so did my addictions and depression.
If you question your thoughts about when your son is not healthy, you come to see that you're the only one you're worried about. It's like without him, you're not happy - so it's all about your happiness. You want him to live for you - for your happiness.
For me, if somebody tells me to go away, that is an opportunity for me to give them a better life. And that's an opportunity for me to know and realize where not to be. It's an opportunity for me to see what could be better than being with that person I love.
The mind is so tricky. It will say, "No one cares. Is it true? Well, someone does. Let's see: So-and-so doesn't care. Well, maybe they do. Well, there is someone who doesn't care." It just shifts and shifts and shifts, so it can keep all of its concepts intact.
It's very benign, it seems, to think, "There's a tree." In fact, it's a very beautiful thought. If someone chops down all the trees, then we think, "Oh, my goodness, something is out of order in my world." We begin to think, "Who am I in a world without trees?"
I love what I think, and I'm never tempted to believe it. Thoughts are like the wind or the leaves on the trees or the raindrops falling. They're not personal, they don't belong to us, they just come and go. When they're met with understanding, they're friends.
As long as you think that the cause of your problem is "out there" - as long as you think that anyone or anything is responsible for your suffering - the situation is hopeless. It means that you are forever in the role of victim, that you’re suffering in paradise.