Thinking versus Thoughts

I just finished reading the famous book Don't Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nguyen. This is an easy to read book full of very deep sentences. You could read through them, or discuss for hours. One clear definition is being able to distinguish what a "thought" is from the action of "thinking".

As a simple example, when I see water bottle. A thought is that it is a "water bottle". Thinking could go beyond and describe the color, size, how much it costs, does it match with the color of the outfit, can it sustain iced water long enough etc etc. You could imagine the thinking is a ruminating process that is extending from the original thought which arrived at the neuronal ends as a simple remembering act. It was registered as a water bottle and recollection is complete. Then the neurons start passing the ball around like crazy until it has no more stops to hit, or it reaches other memories to be unlocked. You may remember that you had the same brand water bottle but then lost it at a NASA open house event in the bathroom, for example.

You might think, "Well, stopping at the thought step for a water bottle is easy". Then take the example of your image on the mirror. That is harder to be non judgemental. How could we regulate the process of letting mind follow this jumping ball, keep jumping from neuron to neuron? If we do not notice the pattern, it just keeps going.. Until it hits an emotional point where we refuse to think on that any longer. Like this brief closing of eye lids and shaking head side to side swiftly. Can you tell when you do this?

Nick Ortner describes the same phenomenon as a mind that does not stop thinking and proposes tapping to intervene and physically give a nudge to move onto something else. Maybe this is similar in action the shaking head movement in terms of its output.

Joseph Nguyen proposes the method PAUSE: pause and notice we are thinking, ask yourself if you want to keep suffering with your own thinking, understand that you have the choice to stop it, say the mantra "thinking is the root cause of suffering", experience the emotions fully (by observing not thinking). This is in a way similar to the Rumi practice where you imagine your heart is a caravan and emotions are (by passers) passengers. You allow them to stay in a non judgemental way. Oh, sadness, you have arrived. Welcome.

Regardless of which way we choose to intervene, we have the power to notice thinking and get out of it. Being stuck in the thinking phase, if coupled with lack of communication or low quality communication is a recipe for relationship disaster. One keeps ruminating what the other one meant to do, say, while he or she being completely unaware.

I wonder if addiction is a form of codependency of neurons to similar ruminations patterns, or a desire for an outcome. If this is game addiction, the desire might be to level up and score well. If this is move addiction, the desire is to close the loops and get to a satisfying end. If this is sugar addiction, I wonder if the non existence of the stimuli is bringing in sadness and hence the desire to keep eating. So the bumping of the signal from neuron to neuron is something we allow to happen and maybe desire and also something we can stop if we wanted.

The main theme is the book is thinking is the root cause of suffering. Being hurt is inevitable, but to keep suffering is optional. Maybe an objection to this type of philosophy that if we stop thinking, we can end suffering is that; yes maybe we can control and postulate a positive mindset by moving from driving to a floating state, but we cannot control external situations. This has truth in it. But there is still a big deal of internal peace that can be rescued by noticing negative thinking, or thinking in general.

The author suggests to follow our intuition, which is the universal (divine) guidance and follows a path that gives a bit of fear but is expansive in nature; compared with staying in the comfort zone, with safety bands around us, that limit this potential and maybe does not allow us to live fully. This is somewhat similar to Dogan Cuceloglu's definition of Joy of Life and how one could fight to obtain joy of life. On the other hand, Nguyen says this flow is natural, you do not need any effort to make it happen. Like the flow of a leaf on a stream, it just goes.

The goal is to utilize these psychological methods to improve the quality of our daily life so we obtain a better mental state, no matter what external conditions are. Seeing the beauty in mundane things, tasks. Noticing pretiness, kindness, appreciating differences. (Here is a song to listen along for this imagination.) I know it is easier said than done. But knowing that we have tools to intervene is a good back pocket knowledge.

I am supposed to be working on my posters right now, but the expanding buckets in my head wanted to dispose of a blog instead. This is my thinking in action to get back to work :)