Early on in my meditation practice, I began to inquire into the process of thought. While it was obvious that my mind in meditation was consumed by snippets of old songs, memories of my mom’s floor polisher, or old bankbook statements, I realized that most of the process of thought was memory. Those memories consumed a lot of effort in their preservation, and mostly they encroached on the present. I was literally living in the past, in thousands of ways. It was like living in a house crammed full of old newspaper stacks and boxes of junk.

Moreover, I began to see the two-fold nature of thought. Any issue I could conceive could have at least two facets: for/against, good/bad, me/other. People talk generally about clear thinking, but I began to realize thought is never really clear. It is always caught in this duality. Since thought is our dominant mode of apprehension, what could be an alternative?

According to the teachings of the Buddha, an antidote for thought is insight, or clear seeing. Accessing a different kind of intelligence can enable us to supersede thought, and use it for its strengths, while not succumbing to its weaknesses. Insight shows us when thought is necessary, as in learning to drive or solving a mechanical problem, like fixing a water pump on my ancient sailboat engine. But thought’s limitations reveal themselves in deeper questions as “What will I do with my life?” At such times, thought must recede into the background so that a deeper intelligence can operate. In my experience, this deeper intelligence only emerges in quietude. For that, meditation is essential.

It is clear that our over-consumptive, hyper-active, outward-directed world is taking a toll on both the planet and ourselves. Stress levels are high. Health issues predominate, even in our technologically sophisticated milieu. Try as we may to find meaning for ourselves in external pursuits, each attempt ultimately fails to deliver. I see this as the chimaera of thought ensnaring us in yet another disguise- that of being saved by technology.

The inner directs the outer, and so we literally are what we think. Unless our inward houses are in order, we cannot act with the clarity and compassion that are so urgently needed.

Jeff