The Mind’s Compartments

The human mind is constantly separating its experiences into 2 primary categories: that which it likes and that which it dislikes, that which is acceptable and that which is not, that which is good and that which is bad. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than when we sit in the stillness of meditation. 

As details of our moments come into awareness we immediately start categorizing…  I like the fact that I’ve found time to meditate, I don’t like the sound of my neighbors leaf blower outside, I like that I get to see my friend later today, I don’t like that I have to go to the other end of the city to pick something up, I like my new meditation pillow, I don’t like that my mind is so busy, and on and on it goes … when we let ourselves be led by the opinions of our minds we experience the inner conflict as we grasp and try to hold onto certain aspects of our experience and push away and avoid other aspects.

The first thing is to realize that compartmentalizing is a normal behavior of the conditioned human mind.  Human beings are pleasure seekers and life conditions us to look for pleasure in certain things that seem to feed us, and to avoid things that bring us face to face with discomfort and pain. The Buddhist teachings have reminded us thoroughly that life inescapably both pleasure and pain, ’ten thousand joys and ten thousand sorrows’, and that while we can’t avoid pain, suffering comes from wanting things to be different than they are.

In meditation we can begin to untangle ourselves from this pattern by beginning to simply see the conditioned self for what it is: a series of thoughts, sensations and emotions that are arising from past experiences, and related beliefs that have very little to do with what’s real and true. By witnessing what’s arising in each moment but not engaging in it we can begin to disconnect from the ongoing need to control this moment to match our ‘ideal’ version of it. We perceive the thoughts and sensations but we don’t entertain them, follow them, argue with them, fix them, or try to make them go way. We notice the mind grasping at certain states and pushing away others but because we are viewing the pageantry of experience from the place of awareness the unfolding become less personal.

Through the stillness of meditation we can also inquire more deeply into the parts of our experience that we tend to push away to free up disowned aspects of our being that have been tucked away because they don’t fit into our idealized versions of ourselves. A willingness to bring awareness to all aspects of our experience is an important step toward the freedom of being in this moment exactly as it’s showing up. If in meditation I feel irritation arising because of noise that is disturbing me, instead of getting caught in wanting the noise to go away, which is often beyond my control, I can turn my attention instead to what’s really here now. There’s the tension in my solar plexus and heart, the judgment of the person making the noise, the wanting it to stop…. So since that’s what’s here for me right now, how about turning my awareness towards my direct experience, bringing all of the thoughts and sensations into the folds of my awareness without making any of it wrong.

With this willingness to be open to the entire experience comes a freedom and spaciousness that accesses stillness and peace in spite of the noise. Rather than being fixated on the noise I am now resting as awareness itself, as sound, thoughts and sensations are moving through a spacious presence that experiences everything as one and the same, beyond the realm of compartments.

Then, as my teacher likes to say sometimes you're enjoying yourself, even when you’re not!