Week 4, Stopping With Mind
Transcript
Hello everyone, once again. Welcome to Week 4 of The 5-Way Stop, Stopping
with Mind.
Of course it’s not as if you haven’t been stopping with mind all along. Body and
speech are all mind, from one point of view, and we describe stopping practice
altogether as a way to reconnect with our more expansive and unencumbered
state of mind.
So what will we look at today that we haven’t been looking at already?
Well, nothing really. I don’t think there’s anything I’ll touch on today that you
haven’t encountered already along the way. But we’re going to amplify two
things.
We’re going to AMPLIFY technique, what do you do with your mind when you
stop.
And in preparation for that, we’re going to amplify your understanding of the
fluidity, the fickle shiftiness of your mind.
We’ll look at technique last, and start with the fluid, fickle nature of your
experience, which is what you apply the technique to.
First of all, when you stop with mind you’re not trying to stop your mind. You’re
not trying to stop thinking. If you’re alive, you think. If you stop thinking, you’re
flat-lining. So please don’t try to stop thinking, it’s bad for your health.
Instead, when you stop, notice what you’re thinking about. Notice what you
were thinking about before you stopped. What thought made you stop? If it was
a physical experience that stopped you, that’s still got a thought attached to it. A
loud noise, for instance, produces the thought, “loud noise.” Then maybe “Gun
shot,” or “Toddler knocking over furniture.” And that leads immediately to
crane@cranestookey.com
www.cranestookey.com
(902) 240-5904
some further thought. “Terrorist attack,” or “My best lamp shattered,” or
“Injured toddler.”
No matter how engrossed you were in your previous train of thought, no matter
how big and solid and all-consuming that train of thought seemed, all it takes is
a loud noise for all that big solid thought to vanish, and be replaced by another
big solid-seeming thought, maybe even bigger and more solid because it includes
fear. And the new big, solid thing is about something that hasn’t even actually
happened. There’s no terrorist attack, no broken lamp, the toddler’s fine.
It doesn’t take a loud noise interrupting you either. Your train of thought derails
all the time. Sometimes it’s like an endless switching yard, tracks leading off in
all directions, a complexity of rail switches and intersections changing and
changing and changing again, and you never know where your train of thought
is heading next. Maybe a lot of people around you, it feels as if they’re manning
the switches, redirecting you to suit their personal frenzy. Maybe the switches
are all going on their own, totally random, and you have no idea where your
train of thought thinks it’s going.
Sometimes it’s the full catastrophe train wreck. Fears and angers take charge out
of nowhere and next thing you know you’re train of thought is a heap of twisted
metal, oil cars burning, thick, black smoke everywhere.
And then a little hungry-for-lunch train comes tooting along, the train wreck
vanishes, and you’re rolling through a pleasant countryside of thoughts of food.
The train wreck seemed like the whole world a moment ago. Now you’re driving
Thomas the Tank Engine and feeling cheery.
When you stop, you have a chance to notice that the whole thing is like a child’s
train set. You can pick up any car or engine and hold it in your hand. None of
them are the huge, multi-ton behemoths that you thought they were. None of
your trains of thought are steaming inexorably toward their immutable destiny.
Even the train of thought that’s carrying the one big deadline that will make or
break your career, even that train may run out of track at any moment and be
replaced by Thomas the Tank Engine.
This doesn’t mean that the deadline that will make or break your career is a toy
train, not to be taken seriously. There are big things in your life that deserve to be
given your undivided attention. But by stopping, you can recognize two things
about all your trains of thought, even the life-changing ones.
2
First, while there are things that deserve to be given your undivided attention,
your undivided attention is not yours to give. Other trains of thought come
tooting in and out. That’s just how it is. That’s how your mind works.
Second, whatever the gravity of the issues that occupy your thoughts, your
thoughts about those issues, the thoughts themselves, have no gravity at all.
Your thoughts have no substance. They’re not even toy trains. They’re mist.
Thick and all-engulfing for a time. Then shifting, dissolving. Fickle. Your
thoughts are much more fluid than the sold things you take them for.
When you stop, you have a chance to notice the shifting insubstantiality of your
thoughts. “What was I thinking about just now? What was I going to start
thinking about next? I knew a moment ago, before I started thinking about
coffee, or my grocery list, or my fight with my spouse. Where did my train of
thought go?”
So at this point some of you may be thinking, “Wait a minute. Stopping practice
is supposed to help me think better, make my thoughts less misty, make my
thinking more substantial, less fickle, more productive. Stopping practice is
supposed to help me give my undivided attention to everything I do. Not help
me see that my mind is really just a fog that I have no control over. That’s not
helpful.”
Okay, you’re right. But there’s a paradox here. The way to make your thinking
into a hard-working, supportive ally instead of a distraction is to see your
thinking for what it is. When you see how insubstantial your thoughts are, your
thoughts lose some of the weight and momentum and thickness that propel you
willy-nilly through your day. If stopping practice serves to cut through the
vapour trail of preoccupation you can get lost in, as I like to say, the more you
see the your thoughts as vapour, the quicker your vapour trail can dissipate. The
seeming solidity of your thoughts makes them heavy, inflexible, claustrophobic,
encumbering. Seeing that your thoughts are not as solid as you think, that in
itself is very expansive. Very unencumbering. Your thoughts become fluid,
malleable, responsive.
When you recognize how your mind actually works, when you recognize the
insubstantiality of your thoughts, then you can relax, and be more patient with
yourself. Not only are you less likely to get caught in a misdirected or
unproductive or claustrophobic train of thought, but when you notice that you
have been caught in something like that, you can more easily bring yourself back
to the more expansive state of mind, because you know how fickle your mind is.
You don’t have to beat yourself up about it. It’s just how your mind works.
Beating yourself up about it isn’t expansive. It’s very encumbering.
3
So here’s the technique. When you stop, notice your thinking. Let your attention
rest on something undemanding, and notice how your previous train of thought
loses its grip, loses its weight, loses its momentum. Notice that it never really had
those qualities in the first place. Notice how your thoughts, in general, don’t
have the grip, the weight, the momentum that you think they do. Your thoughts
are much more fluid and flexible than that.
This doesn’t have to be a big analysis, another thought project to get all heavy
about. You can just let your attention rest on something outside the window, or
on the colour of the wall, or on the feel of your feet on the floor, or on the space
under the table. Without comment. Then when a commenting thought comes up
in your mind, or another train of thought starts rolling, notice that. Notice it with
appreciation. “Oh yes, my mind is off thinking again. That’s what it does. What a
nice little thought it’s having. Or my, what a big impressive, important thought
it’s having. I wonder what it will think next.” And then let your attention come
back to resting on the view out the window, or the colour of the wall, or the feel
of your feet on the floor, or the space under the table. When another comment or
train comes up, notice again, “Oh yes, here’s another thought.” And back to the
view, the wall, your feet, the space under the table.
Because your mind is not going to stop thinking, the way to “stop” it is to give it
something undemanding to think about. Like the colour of the wall. If you don’t
feed your mind something it will starting feeding on whatever it can find. So
feed it something simple, and let it relax. Feed your mind something simple, and
let it unencumber itself. Feed your mind something simple so it’s not ravenously
leaping about looking for something to feed on. And when your mind becomes
unsatisfied with the simple stuff you’re feeding it, and starts to cook up
something else, you can appreciate the quality of the cooking, so to speak, and
then come back to something simple.
Even within 60 seconds of stopping, there will be multiple restarts, when your
mind starts cooking something up again. The practice of stopping is not about
maintaining some pure, still, simple experience. That’s just not how your mind
works. The practice of stopping is repeatedly noticing what your mind is doing,
giving it a simple alternative, noticing what your mind does with that, giving it
the simple alternative again, over and over through 60 seconds, 90 seconds,
however long you try to stop.
Stopping’s not in the quality, “Oh, what a great stop I’m having right now.”
Stopping is in the quantity, “Ah yes, my mind is dumpster diving again.” So yu
call it back. “Yoo hoo, over here!” Again, and again, and again.
4
When you become good at this, it’s easier to notice what your mind is doing
moment by moment throughout the day, and repeatedly give it a simpler
alternative for a moment, even just for a flash, so your mind can relax and
expand. Whenever you give your mind a simple alternative for a moment, even
something as simple and brief as listening to the sound of the phone ring or
feeling the doorknob in your hand, you lay the ground for two helpful
possibilities. One, you make your mind freshly ready for you to give it
something more useful to think about, like the task at hand. Or you make your
mind freshly ready to produce an unexpected insight on its own, something
you’ve been needing to realize but hadn’t made the space for.
It’s important, when you’re bringing your mind back to something simple and
undemanding, not to be harsh about it. You’re not trying to corral your mind,
pen your mind in. There’s a Zen saying that the way to control your cow is to
give it a big field. When you stop, your attention is the field. By trying hard to
concentrate your attention on a simple, undemanding thing, and reprimanding
yourself when you can’t, you make the field small. By letting your attention rest
lightly on a simple, undemanding thing, you make the field big. In that bigger
field, you can let your mind think whatever it likes, so long as your mind still
knows it’s in a big field.
In other words, when thoughts come up, you don’t say to yourself, “No, none of
that. I’m nailing you to the colour of the wall, I’m confining you in the space
under the table.” And then the thought rebels and carries you with it. Instead,
you can say, “Okay, a thought. Plenty of space for you here. So much space, in
fact, that I don’t even need to pay attention to you. No need for me to follow you
around and feed you.” And then the thought has nothing to latch on to, and it
can dissipate. Leaving you in that expansive, unencumbered state of mind, your
place of fresh start.
Now, resting in the big field can be hard. There’s so much else to do. So much to
think about. You have to play cowboy with your thoughts all the time, get this
herd to the railroad line so you can get it all on your next train of thought and
head out.
So when you stop, you feel the urge to get going again. Right away. Fifteen
seconds pass and you think, “Okay, that’s enough, I’ve got to keep moving.”
This is where another aspect of the technique of stopping with mind comes in.
When the urge to get going again strikes you, just sit with it for another moment.
Ask yourself, why do I need to start again right now? What bad thing happens if
I wait another 30 seconds. If I wait through two or three more urges to get
going?” Ask yourself this, come back to the undemanding thing you rest your
attention on, and do this two or three more times than you’re comfortable with.
5
Your train of thought doesn’t control the train schedule. You do. You may not
control the deadline you’re trying to meet, but you control how much you rush
to meet it, and how much you give yourself the freshness of mind you need to
meet it deliberately. So don’t give in to the first urge to get going again.
Lastly, one more thing about stopping with mind. When you stop, you have the
chance to notice your thoughts. It’s just as true that your thoughts can be the
things that stop you. Stop you in your tracks sometimes. An unexpected wave of
fear or anger that comes over you, when last week’s fight with your spouse
suddenly, unexpectedly resurfaces. A sudden burst of delight that hits you out of
the blue, when something your child said pops into your mind.
Just as any physical experience, like the phone ringing, can be both a reminder to
stop and a technique for stopping, your mental experiences can too. Your
thoughts can ring much louder than the phone. When they do, stop long enough
to intentionally savour the delight, or intentionally notice and let go of the
vividness of the fear, and then let your attention rest for another moment, before
you get going again.
Every experience, every movement of the mind, can be a reminder and a
technique for stopping. This can become a very powerful mental skill, using
confusion, for example, as a reminder and a path to find clarity. Using anger as a
reminder and a path to find gentleness. Using speediness as a reminder and a
path to find deliberate action. When we practice stopping with mind, we practice
stopping with everything. So there’s nothing missing. Everything we need to
stop with, we have in abundance. Everything we need to proceed with, we have
in abundance. But we have to keep stepping off the speeding train into the field.
Again and again. Again and again. And again.
Have good stopping this week. Next week, our last, we’ll bring together all
we’ve done so far, as the roadmap to finding our personal best performance, on
the spot, when we need it. Until then, stop well.
6