What I have seen – over and over – for the last 35 years is that my nature and the nature of thoughts reveal each other. When my nature recognizes itself, the nature of thoughts is revealed. And when the nature of thoughts is revealed, my nature recognizes itself.
It’s that simple, and not that simple. And the exploration and living from it is an ongoing process.
RECOGNIZING MY NATURE MAKES IT EASIER TO RECOGNIZE THE NATURE OF THOUGHTS
When I find myself as what the field of experience happens within and as, identification is released out of the content of experience. More accurately, it’s released out of thoughts. Out of identifying with the viewpoint of a thought, and holding the thought as true.
That makes it easier to recognize the nature of thoughts. I recognize thoughts as thoughts. They live their own life. They are questions about the world. Their function is to help this human self navigate and operate in the world. They cannot hold any full, final, or absolute truth. That’s not their function.
RECOGNIZING THE NATURE OF THOUGHTS MAKES IT EASIER TO RECOGNIZE MY NATURE
I can also examine the nature of my thoughts and use that as a way to clarify how I notice my nature.
A general intellectual understanding is not going to do much. The magic happens in specific, grounded, and thorough examination of my most cherished thoughts.
I have often used The Work of Byron Katie to identify and examine specific thoughts and find what’s more true for me.
And I have also used sense field explorations to see how the mental field creates outlines, labels, and so on about everything to help my mind make sense of it, and to thoroughly examine specific identifications. I find the Kiloby Inquiries especially helpful here.
Both of these tend to reveal my nature, although it can take time and require a thorough examination of my most basic assumptions and priced thoughts and identities.
THE MUTUALITY
In my experience, these two explorations go hand-in-hand and mutually benefit each other.
Finding my nature helps me recognize the general nature of thoughts, and resting in and as my nature while exploring specific identifications can help the charge to release out of these.
Examining my thoughts helps to clarify my nature and to live from it in more situations. There will always be parts of me holding onto certain (often painful) thoughts as true. These inevitably color my perception and life and are sometimes triggered more strongly. So it helps to examine these more thoroughly. It reduces the “separation consciousness” load in my system.
A FEW MORE WORDS
I thought I would add a few words about my nature and the nature of my thoughts, even if I have written about it in other articles.
MY NATURE
It’s not wrong that I am this human self in the world. This particular human self has a special relationship with what I more fundamentally am.
And I am more fundamentally something else. (I don’t even need to look because it’s right here.) I am more fundamentally what it all happens within and as. To me, the content of the field of experience – this human self, others, and the wider world happen – happens within and as what I am.
Said another way, I am consciousness, and the world, to me, happens within and as this consciousness.
This is not just an idea. It’s a direct and inescapable noticing.
THE NATURE OF THOUGHTS
The nature of thoughts is also what anyone would say who has looked into it.
Thoughts are here to help me orient and navigate in the world. This mind creates mental representations as a kind of map of the world and uses that to help orient which, in turn, helps this human self function in the world.
Thoughts are questions about the world. They are different in kind from what they point to. (Unless they happen to point to other mental representations.) They function as a kind of map of the world. They are abstractions. They are more or less valid and accurate in a conventional sense. They inevitably highlight, distort, and leave out. They cannot hold any final, full, or absolute truth – that’s not their function.
The world is always more than and different from our ideas about it, and also less.
And this goes for any and all mental representations, even the ones we may take the most for granted like ideas about who and what we are, this human self, that there is a doer and observer here, that matter exists, that we and the world are – more or less – as we think they are, that others did something to us, our needs and desires, and so on. They are all questions about the world, here to help us orient and guide.
INITIAL NOTES
- My nature and the nature of thoughts reveal each other
- My nature + nature of thoughts – describe
- when my nature recognizes itself, the nature of thoughts is revealed
- when the nature of thoughts is revealed, my nature is revealed
INITIAL DRAFT
What I have seen over and over for the last 35 years is that my nature and the nature of thoughts reveal each other. When my nature recognizes itself, the nature of thoughts is revealed. And when the nature of thoughts is revealed, my nature recognizes itself.
It’s that simple, and not that simple. And the exploration and living from it is an ongoing process.
MY NATURE
I have mentioned this in other articles so will just touch on it briefly here.
It’s not wrong that I am this human self in the world. This particular human self has a special relationship with what I more fundamentally am.
And I am more fundamentally something else. (I don’t even need to look because it’s right here.) I am more fundamentally what it all happens within and as. To me, the content of the field of experience – this human self, others, and the wider world happen – happens within and as what I am.
Said another way, I am consciousness, and the world, to me, happens within and as this consciousness.
This is not just an idea. It’s a direct and inescapable noticing.
THE NATURE OF THOUGHTS
The nature of thoughts is also what anyone would say who has looked into it.
Thoughts are here to help me orient and navigate in the world. This mind creates mental representations as a kind of map of the world and uses that to help orient which, in turn, helps this human self function in the world.
Thoughts are questions about the world. They are different in kind from what they point to. (Unless they happen to point to other mental representations.) They function as a kind of map of the world. They are abstractions. They are more or less valid and accurate in a conventional sense. They inevitably highlight, distort, and leave out. They cannot hold any final, full, or absolute truth – that’s not their function.
The world is always more than and different from our ideas about it, and also less.
And this goes for any and all mental representations, even the ones we may take the most for granted like ideas about who and what we are, this human self, that there is a doer and observer here, that matter exists, that we and the world are – more or less – as we think they are, that others did something to us, our needs and desires, and so on. They are all questions about the world, here to help us orient and guide.
THE MUTUALITY