Expert: Joe McSorley - 3/16/2011

Question
Hello, this is in response to my previous question... thank you for the answer by the way.

Again this is a bit difficult to put in words but you seem to understand well enough. I am still troubled by this. There is a saying that I've found appropriate, "how many heads do you need?" It seems that there are so many conflicting concepts in my head, I have built up barriers to all sorts of things. I seem to be afraid of feeling happy at times because, knowing how fleeting it is I fear it will turn to suffering, I am afraid of thoughts at times but also of not thinking because both seem to just end up being more ego. I am afraid of considering things accomplishments yet at the same time I worry that my meditating was not successful. Yet trying to bring down these barriers seems to cause more to come up (and ironically I get afraid of trying to stop having conceptual barriers because I think more will come up, just like everything else haha).There just doesn't seem to be a way out... I'm not even sure where "out" is anymore, I just know that I don't like "here". And that was the whole point, right? Getting to accept here and now... meditating seems all too often to just cause more stress, getting me stuck in my head and caught up in whether or not I can still my mind, yet if I don't do it I give in to my thoughts all the more and it just gets worse.

I could go on, I think you get the idea. You said in the last question that it was essential to understand why you are practicing, but I really do not know what I want here. I used to know but all those words like "discover yourself", "still your mind" or "be in the now" are meaningless to me, they just bounce off like so much fluff. What am I doing here?? How is it that I can be free of... whatever it is? There seems to be something, quite obviously that I need to do here, something I need to realize but I just am so lost. Just stuck here with this demon in my head.

Answer
Hello Nicholaas,
   The demon in your head does not exist unless you give it existence.  When your mind is quiet when engaged deeply in activity or sleep the demon does not exist.  It only exists when you pay attention to it, fuel it with thought and give it meaning.  There is no stress unless you try to maintain, or not maintain, a sense of your self as opposed to everything else. I generally do not advocate those things like ‘be here now’, ‘discover yourself’ or ‘still the mind’ because all of these things perpetuate the problem.  Instead of the idea of discovering yourself try to see who it is that has the problem.  To discover yourself is to have the delineation between that which is discovered and that which is discovering.  Stop trying to discover or perceive, figure out or understand and just pay attention to life.  Pay pure attention without judgment and qualities. In this sense, yes, still the mind but not to have a still mind but to create the opportunity to see.  Just stilling the mind is a dumb numbness.  I know this sounds abstract but it is not.  When you are deeply engaged in biking or sport you are paying pure attention to the point where you are just doing it; there is no “I” here.  Try to accomplish this in everyday like so that you are so engaged in being alert and attentive that you are purely living. No matter what it is you are doing, do just that thing and nothing else.  Be completely engaged in your life and don’t stand apart from your life.
  Ask yourself, “ What can my worrying accomplish, has it ever accomplished anything”?  I mean it, really face that, has worrying ever achieved anything in your life.  When you realize it hasn’t you realize it is a total waste of time.  If you come to know it can’t accomplish anything you can discard it.  Many years ago I told my teacher I was crippled with the fear of death and he said to me, “are you going to die regardless of your fear?”  I said, “Yes” and he said,” so instead of living you are living in fear, a fear that won’t change anything, so why not just live”?  By living in fear you are in fact not living and engaging in life but rather you are living in the fear your thoughts create.  You are worried about achievement, success and outcome.  Please discard all of these ideas, just live.
  I would say you do know what you want here; you want your suffering to stop.  Only you can stop your suffering because only you create your suffering.  It is the functioning of your mind that creates an imperfect world.  The world is pure and perfect as it is. Look at it, see it.
  This takes time, stop beating your self up, it does nothing to help, just keep at it.
 Good luck,
        Joe