This mind of ours is remarkable. Our cognitive power has carried us to the top of the food chain on this planet, and perhaps soon on others, as we plan the colonization of Mars.
But the mind can also make us feel miserable, stressed, and confused.
Our cat Piko does not seem concerned about what might happen tomorrow. He appears untroubled by metaphysical or philosophical anxieties.
He has a leg up on me here.
Whenever Piko feels an emotion, it seems to arise and fade naturally, like a cloud passing through the sky. He might carry a grudge briefly, but I doubt he feels guilt or blame the way we do.
His kin do not look like the type to carry a grudge for centuries.
Looks like he has two legs up on all of us.
The Buddha taught that everything we need to free ourselves from emotional and philosophical anxiety is available right here, right now, simply by noticing how we experience the world.
We can touch deep Buddhist insight simply by examining our present moment experience: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking.
Chains of discursive thought can arise out of nowhere, about anything.
While sitting quietly we may hear a bird, and within a second we are worrying that we have not heard as many birds as we used to in the mornings, caught up in a small climate change revenge fantasy.
The meditation teacher Shaila Catherine describes a student who noticed her thoughts and feelings on the day she lost a hair clip.
She knew she had to buy a new one, and felt annoyed at having to make a special trip to the store. How could she have lost it? Now she would have to spend more money. Her job did not pay well. Her thoughts drifted toward never having enough money, and a fear that she never would. Feelings of failure and self-criticism grew. She decided she had better get a new job. But then doubt arose: what else could she even do?
All this from a simple thought about a lost hair clip.
This may sound trivial. But, heck, my own days are peppered with anxieties just as benign as a lost hair clip, and which, without some mindfulness, morph into self-recrimination and anguish.
Even after forty years of meditation, I still catch my mind running on a mental hamster wheel, working hard to solve some vital issue that, after a mindful pause, turns out to be on the same order as a lost hair clip.
We can explore the feelings underneath the stories we tell ourselves in meditation. We can bring these feelings to therapy, and learn how our past shapes our present.
Or perhaps the sheer absurdity of what we are going on about gives us a good laugh.
Simple reminders help. We can pause for a moment. Take a breath. Interrupt the flow of restless thinking.
We can use the Buddhist practice of labeling our daily experience, naming “this is restlessness” or “this is worry” as it arises. With practice, our baseline capacity for this kind of self-reflection grows.
Our lives become more livable this way. Love visits more often. And Piko, for his part, keeps sleeping in the sun, entirely unconcerned.
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