TB: You Are What You Think

Definition

You are what you think — we are our habitual thoughts — but with practice you can change what you think, and therefore who you are. Character is the accumulated residue of habitual thought. What you continually think about conditions the mind, so it matters greatly to know what you are thinking about and to train the mind toward wholesome thoughts (those that lead to happiness).

Why it matters

Our only contact with reality is via our minds; in a sense all we have is our minds and our consciousness. The mind is the basis for everything you experience and for any contribution you can make to others, so it makes sense to train it. An untrained mind lets us be unhappy even when things are about as good as they can possibly be — consumed by stress, lost in things we need to do or wish we hadn't done, rarely content in the present. Understanding the mind is therefore the highest-order intervention.

Key Takeaways

Meditation as an empirical practice

  • Meditation is a fundamentally empirical exercise. It asks: what is the mind like when it is doing nothing but noticing whatever is in the stream of consciousness? What is it like right now?
  • Why meditate? "If you want to understand your mind, simply sit down and observe it." Simple — no rituals, ceremonies, nothing to join. In meditating, we begin to see what creates suffering in ourselves and what brings greater happiness and peace; seeing this, we make wiser choices, become happier, and spiral toward greater fulfilment and ease.
  • The intention of practice is to be happier and better placed to make others happier — to suffer less and help others suffer less.
  • Meditation is not something you are doing; it is something you are ceasing to do. You cease being distracted by thought. It is not an inwardness but an openness — open to the world by paying attention.
  • Meditation is the art of realizing you are already fulfilled before you chase the next thing. Practice to the point where you can see, in this moment, that you are already free.
  • Meditation is the art of recognizing again and again that you are not who you think you are. You are not having an experience — you are an experience.
  • What really matters is life outside dedicated meditation, where we spend most of our time. The goal is to puncture ordinary experience with moments of cutting through distraction to see the true character of experience; dedicated practice tells us we are cutting through effectively, but doesn't do it for us in the moment.

Mind as enemy, reason as ally

  • We are used to thinking of our minds as our allies. In reality minds are prone to laziness, want to believe a good story, and don't want to be challenged. It is reason that is our ally — needed to keep the mind in check and unbiased.
  • Most of our thinking is pointless or actively harmful, born of anxiety, envy, and self-judgment, and it perpetuates those states. Mindfulness is the cure: it lets you experience life in the present without ruminating on what happened, should have happened, or might happen next.
  • Notice your emotions, but don't necessarily act on them (EQ). You can satiate a desire by being aware of it without indulging it.
  • Two ways mindfulness improves life: it gives space to reflect on whether an action is worth doing (letting wisdom that considers the big picture emerge), and it turns even unavoidable, unpleasant experiences into a source of psychological freedom (by attending to resistance and aversion, you watch those states unravel).
  • It is important to make a friend of your mind — it is really all you have. Know it for what it is: an open space where sensations, thoughts, and feelings appear.

Attention, wisdom, and the present

  • Being mindful of thinking and emotion is the gateway to psychological well-being (via Sam Harris). The goal of meditation is wisdom — recognizing how things already are in each moment, stepping out of the fantasy life of a perpetually distracted mind.
  • The only way to live without regret is to pay attention. Two steps to a good life: be a good person, and pay attention.
  • Skillful management of attention is the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience (Cal Newport). Learning to think really means being aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and how you construct meaning from experience (DFW, "This Is Water").
  • Accept life as it is whenever you can; the next moment is as good a time as you are likely to get. This moment is the only place our life appears and can only be enjoyed now. To seek happiness in all the usual ways is to overlook it now.
  • Notice when you are rushing — feel the tension, take a breath, be mindful, and relax. Be mindful of comparing yourself to others (both favorable and unfavorable comparisons), which causes needless suffering; as you grow mindful of it, you stop.
  • Be mindful of moments when you disappoint yourself or others; recognize it, apologize immediately if necessary, forgive yourself, and begin again. Perfection is not required — begin again.
  • Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement (Baltasar Gracián). Our lives are built of primary instincts and impulses; only what connects to these appears desirable, and nothing called "reason" or "virtue" sits outside these first movers (Russell).

Impermanence, discernment, and wholesome thoughts

  • Notice thoughts: be aware of when you notice them (right away, during, afterwards), and whether they are skillful or unskillful. Unskillful thoughts call for extra diligence; with skillful ones, simply be aware they are arising. This practice should be active and dynamic. Thoughts are slippery, low-impact events — harder to notice arising than sounds or sensations.
  • Recognizing impermanence: awareness alone is not enough, but it is critical for investigating the impermanent nature of everything. We know "things change" intellectually; mindfulness lets us know it in the moment. This is a direct path: knowing impermanence settles the mind, a settled mind does not cling, and what does not cling does not suffer.
  • Discernment: relax but don't be casual. Awareness and discernment are crucial — it isn't enough to be aware; you must know that what you are doing is wholesome (will lead to happiness) and appropriate (effective in the moment, mindful of consequences to yourself and others). Approach the practice with a sense of humor.
  • Moods: we coarse-grain how we feel, but things are constantly changing. Noticing this breaks up the inaccurate coarse-graining that leads to suffering.

The end of craving (Joseph Goldstein)

  • What is achieved is the end of craving: a mind free of envy and desire is enlightened. The possibility and practice are available in the moment and for the moment — can we let go of craving right now? Practice recognizing the free quality of mind for short moments, many times.
  • Craving (wanting, desire) obscures the natural openness and ease of mind. When the mind is free of craving you can taste peace and freedom. Recognize desire in the mind, watch what that quality looks like, and notice how it feels when the wanting goes away — the dukkha of wanting versus the ease of not wanting.
  • Three fields of desire: (1) sense pleasures — fetishized by our culture, so familiar they become invisible and require careful attention; (2) craving as expectation — a huge hindrance, since expectations always bring agitation (hope and fear). Don't confuse expectation (a trap) with aspiration (wise). Pleasant feelings are impermanent, so we chase one after another until life ends.
  • The second, deeper craving is the urge for continued existence — craving for becoming. We see it when lost in "planning mind," inhabiting some future self. The goal: not reliving the past, not hoping for the future, but seeing each arising state with insight. We only ever experience the past or future as a thought in the present — recognizing this is liberating. Liberation comes not from a new experience but from letting go; we practice not for some experience but to let go.
  • The third craving is craving for non-existence — wanting to get rid of experience. All three forms of craving are rooted in the sense of self (which is not there in the first place).
  • One path to freedom: seeing impermanence leads to disenchantment (being free of enchantment by the flow of experience), which leads to dispassion (lack of craving, a movement back into peace), which leads to the mind being liberated. One way to practice: feel the flow of impermanence and changing experience, then call disenchantment to mind and rest there, then call dispassion to mind and rest there.

Mental Models

Source note

You are what you think

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