Solo Trip

I’ve spent the past week in the Lake Tahoe area — mostly alone, visiting coffee shops, biking, and writing. Reflecting on this time and my mental state, I’ve noticed something curious about my own mind.

When alone, I found it becomes easier to notice the inner workings of my mind. There is nothing to distract me from myself… except my own thoughts. I notice the constant stream of thoughts which run through each bike ride and every simple act. I notices that thoughts appear and disappear — like leaves floating along a current. They come and go. Is there really a thinker behind them? Or only a thinking process?

Thoughts or the Thinking Process?

If thoughts are transient — always coming and going — do they have any true existence of their own? It seems they aren’t objects at all, but rather movements within the ongoing process of thinking. A river, with bubbles, ripples, waves and whirlpools.

In addition to our thinking process, we create a “thinker” of thoughts. Our western minds are trained to create “things” where only processes exist. (I go more in-depth on the cultural side of this in following sections of this article.) In this way, the thinker is really just another thought. This “thinker” is another creation of a separate thing.

In English, verbs must have nouns that perform them, so naturally we imagine a thinker along with thinking. The issue is that this is a misrepresentation of reality.

When we look for a thinker of our thoughts, it isn’t anywhere to be found. We find lots of thoughts coming and going. But not a thinker. Our minds are trained by culture, language and myth, to ascribe all processes to actors – we are trained to perceive doers where there are none!

Heartbeats and Thoughts

Who is thinking our thoughts? Where do they come from? Where do they go?

We say, “My heart beats,” not “I beat my heart.” The heartbeat is clearly an involuntary process. Yet when it comes to the mind, we say, “I think,” as if we’re the authors of thought.

In contrast to the heartbeat – we actually believe that we are the authors of thoughts!

When I observe my own stream of thought, I see that thoughts simply arise and vanish. Their qualities shift in relationship to my body and my perceptions. I observe them as not separate even from bodily state and processes.

This belief that we are the authors of thought is part of the same misconception passed down from our culture mentioned earlier.

I have found that this misconception causes suffering. For example, when I try to “clear my mind,” it only creates more tension, more opposition with the way things are. Riding my bike, I notice thoughts endlessly flowing — and the wish for a “thoughtless mind” is just another thought!

If thinking were truly voluntary, I could stop at will. But it isn’t.

What is so special about a clear mind anyway? When we give too much importance to our mental state and try to make it different, this only makes the problem worse! Adyashanti talking about meditation, tells us not to put so much importance on the business of our minds.

When we stop measuring or judging our minds, we stop splashing the water and they naturally settle.

This brings me to something larger I’ve noticed: the same illusion that makes us believe “I think” also makes us believe in “things” themselves. We freeze the flowing into form. We name processes — heartbeats, thoughts, rivers — and in doing so, we forget their true nature.

Is a River a thing? Or is it a Process?

“A man cannot step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river, and he is not same man.” –Heraclitus

But is there even really a river? A river is really a shortcut to describe continuously flowing water on land. Look closely and you cannot find the river itself. Our minds make us believe that there really is such a thing as the river as a separate “thing.” But when you really examine it, there isn’t anything that persists that we can call “river”. The water is constantly flowing, the land is constantly eroding and transforming… Nothing persists.

Our mind creates an abstraction: “river.” This abstraction, this separate “thing” is a creation of the mind. In reality, the abstraction exists only in our minds. We have created a static thing, where there is only really flux and change. It’s a happening, a process.

Alan Watts uses the analogy of a knot in a rope made of different materials. As the rope is pulled, the knot changes from nylon, to cotton, to silk, etc.

This illustrates how the knot is an abstract concept created by our minds. The knot itself isn’t an object, but a pattern. The knot, as the rope moved, changed materials completely! And when we unravel the knot, it disappears!

So it is with all nouns. They appear to exist, but they are really just patterns of process.

Nouns and Suffering

Seeing reality as a world of separate things is a major source of suffering. When we perceive things as real, we cling to them, thus, we suffer their inevitable change. When our model of reality is misaligned, we feel that friction in our bodies and minds.

Recognizing that everything is process — not object — lightens the spirit and puts the body at ease.

This is not a new realization. Many Indigenous cultures have long understood reality as a web of processes. Some Indigenous languages, particularly certain Salishan and Wakashan languages, lack a strict distinction between nouns and verbs. Instead of separate categories, these languages describe things as processes or states, expressing noun-like concepts through verbal structures. What English renders as “things,” these languages describe as happenings.

Language tells us a lot about worldview as it informs how we communicate, think, and generally interact with the world.

Worldview & Culture

What I’m really pointing to here is the foundation of perception itself. Western language and culture have taught us to see nouns where there are none, that no action happens without an external force.

Even the western creation story reflects this: a God who made the world, as though existence must have a maker. Culture, language, and myth all inter-inform and reinforce each other, creating minds deeply entrenched in this psychosocial-linguistic framework. This misaligned worldview creates suffering in our minds, our bodies and our world.

No More Nouns

When we see that separate things are really a construct of our minds, we can awaken to the vibrance of the world as it is. We awaken to the self-so nature of Nature. We cease clinging to our false creations and start to live in the present. We recognize the connections between processes and free our minds.

The process worldview — the one aligned with Taoism, Indigenous wisdom, and the flow of nature — is not new. It’s ancient. And perhaps, it’s the view we must rediscover to live in harmony with life itself.

#substack #posted
https://substack.com/home/post/p-175633838