Thoughts and Images in Meditation

I'm going to say a little bit this morning about thoughts and images in meditation. And again, just conscious of the diversity in the room in terms of people's backgrounds, experience, directions of what you're exploring in practice. So hopefully something can be said that's helpful for everyone. First thing perhaps about this area, about thought and image in meditation, is that, again, it's not so simple. The whole situation is not so simple. It's not only that thought is a problem, something to be rid of. It certainly can be a problem. I think everyone is quite aware of that -- how much we can feel plagued by thought, and badgered and beaten up by thought, dragged this way and that, under the thumb of thought. And actually, in a way, we are under the thumb of thought in very obvious ways, and in really quite subtle ways that may not be obvious at all. There are different levels of the way we are captive to the thinking mind and the whole realm of thought.

So it can be a problem, but as well, we can actually use thought and image, and learn to use them mindfully and creatively and very powerfully in order to open up many things, in order to cultivate many lovely qualities, in order to open up insights, many kinds of insights and many kinds of freedom, freedoms (plural).

Let's start with sort of obviously problematic situations. Sometimes, whether it's in formal meditation or not, the mind feels thick with thought -- but not necessarily about one thing in particular; it's kind of random, it's just scattered. Really important here -- again, a lot of this overlaps with the talk about calming -- not to get too reactive, too much aversion. Is it possible to be with this, and soften the reactivity, soften the aversion to it?

One possibility is, when the mind is buzzing like that, the body will actually be buzzing as well. There'll be reflected in the body a kind of probably unpleasant buzz that's the mirror of all this stuff happening in the mind. So without needing to actually push away the thought, one can go to the body, tune into that buzz, and work on just allowing it, allowing it. Really, really turning that 'allowing' dial up to eleven, as it says in Spinal Tap.

When the mind is scattered, we say 'spaced out' -- actually, it's a state of contraction. When the mind is scattered, it's actually a state of contraction. And again, overlapping with the talk on calming, contraction, clinging, this will be mirrored in the body. I can go there and deal with it at that level, work with it at that level.

If what you're trying to do in a meditation period is actually try to stay with one object, whatever it is, the breath or whatever, it can be really helpful -- and there is a lot of thick thought, random thought around -- really helpful to open up a little space, open up a little space in the practice. Get the sense of the whole body involved. Sometimes the mind is a bit like a gas: if we squeeze it, it increases its -- was it Boyle's law or whatever? Who did O-Level Physics? [laughter] I think when you put a gas under pressure it increases the temperature. Basically, the molecules start flying around faster. The mind's a bit like that: squeeze it too tight, it has exactly the opposite effect of what we want, exactly the opposite.

So this is related also to effort levels -- again, overlap with the last talk on calming. And you can see this sometimes outside of retreat. If you have a very busy day, you've been at work, the mind's very full from the day at work, etc., and you sit down, if you do an evening practice or whatever, and you want to kind of squeeze the mind into shape, and it has exactly the opposite effect of what's intended. Oftentimes, better to just chill for a little while. Be there, be present, but open out, relax, soften, just be with what's going on, allowing this turmoil to move through. And actually, that can allow the mind to settle, and it can pick up its object much better, if that's what it wants to do, if that's what you want to do.

So there's a word -- sometimes it's called 'drifting.' It means the attention drifts away from the object and gets caught up in thoughts and images, or there are a lot of thoughts and images. Very common state. It's a subtle form of restlessness. Very common in meditation. It's hard to know in the moment, when that's happening and the mind is skitting off like that, too many thoughts in the mind, it's hard to know, do I need a bit more effort here, hang on to that object, or do I need to back off and a little less? Could be either. Experimentation is absolutely crucial; we can't get away from it in terms of the art of meditation. It's a real art here. It's not a formula. There is no formula. It's a bit like surfing -- which I've never been surfing, but I imagine that I don't know what's going to happen, the way the wave is going to move, the way the wind is going to move, the way I'm going to need to counter-respond to the movement I've just made in terms of balancing. It's like that. It's improvised. Skilful, sensitive, improvised, experimental response to what's happening. And a lot of it is very, very delicate.

So effort and how much thought in the mind are actually intimately connected. And this question of effort, it doesn't go away in practice. It never goes away. You never get beyond it, or it's sorted. What happens is it gets more and more subtle, more and more subtle. Very, very subtle, this question of effort. It just gets more and more subtle. It's part of the art. We need to kind of get our heads around that, and realize that, incorporate it, make friends with it, with this question of effort, with this playing with effort.

Even at much deeper levels, when a person is exploring jhānas and sort of the jhānic territory of very deep absorption, lovely states of mind, a curious thing very often happens. The mind is very locked in to a state of bliss or peace or whatever it is, and then it slips, and the mind is off for a moment or a few moments or whatever it is. And then it comes back. The mind comes back. And oftentimes, in returning, a person finds it comes back to a deeper level. The whole bliss or peace or whatever has gone deeper. The whole quality has shifted another gear. How did that happen? I didn't make it happen. The mind just slipped. You would think the opposite. What's going on there? I don't know. But to me, it suggests maybe just a hair's, a whisker's too much effort, the relaxing of the effort in actually spacing out a little bit and losing mindfulness, actually seemed to do the process good. Strange.

So this whole business has a lot, like I said last time, a lot to do with delicacy, delicacy of attention. If we can make the attention delicate, whatever practice we're doing, and actually support, nourish a sense of that delicacy of attention, oftentimes the whole practice kind of shifts to another level of interest. We start to notice other levels of experience, other factors. A much more refined perception can open out. And that stimulates the interest and the curiosity. When that's there, then the mind is less scattered in thought. So how to get interested and curious in the whole thing?

When there is this kind of random thickness of thought, patience is so key. And I'm sure you've recognized this in your own practice, but sometimes it shifts very slowly. It's just plugging away, patiently, gently plugging away. And sometimes it shifts really like on a dime, just from one moment to the next. There was all this stuff going on, and then somehow, it just lifted -- like a fog, just lifted. So we don't know what's going to happen. You just keep working patiently, and it lifts, either slowly or suddenly.

Now, sometimes, of course, the mind has less thought going on. It's a little less dense and thick with thought. And then it's interesting -- you can start to work a little bit more subtly. The mind is following a train of thought, pulled in a train of thought, and actually a little bit of mindfulness comes in, a little bit of questioning: do I need to finish this thought? Do I really need to finish it? Am I going to be happier at the end of this thought for having followed it through? Some thoughts, I will be marginally happier. But most, not. Some, actually, a negative effect.

So if there's enough mindfulness, actually catching oneself in a train of thought, and literally halfway through a thought, I don't need to go to the end necessarily. What if I just cut it? Not just cut it, actually feel: when I cut it, what does that feel like? And there will be some degree of relief, of "Ah!", ease, of spaciousness perhaps. That is really, really important to feel. Really important to feel that in the body. The feeling of the relief in the body, it's like it cements the insight: "Oh, yeah, that tastes good. I can taste that it feels good to let go of the thought." Then I learn something. I learn it through the body: "This is good." We're so addicted to thinking that these little moments of tasting the ease of that really, really begin to add up. They begin to teach us something.

Some people sometimes find labelling thoughts helpful. So for example, not just recognizing that thinking is going on, but what kind of thought is it? Planning, noticing, "Oh, it's planning." Or it's whatever it is, judging, remembering, fantasizing, whatever. And sustaining that kind of labelling can be really helpful in terms of gaining some perspective, some spaciousness, and quietening the mind a little bit. It's as if, through the label, the mindfulness finds a foothold. It's got something to push itself up on, that label, and raise the energy of mindfulness. The energy of mindfulness needs to be greater than the energy of the thinking. And then the process deepens.

So that labelling serves that function. It also, if you like, kind of objectifies, it gives a sense of objectification in terms of the thought that's going on, a sense of distance or spaciousness, less entanglement. Can be really helpful. And of course, if one does that for a little bit, you begin to notice the tendencies of the mind: "Oh, that's interesting. I tend to mostly think about the past, or I tend to mostly think about the future," whatever it is, or planning, or judging. You recognize what the habits, the particular sort of streams that the mind, our mind, habitually finds its way down. Good to know one's tendencies. Good to know what's my particular version of trouble that I wrap myself in. Good to know that. But then, also, the investigation can start there. We'll say more about that later.

Now, of course, we all know as human beings sometimes the mind gets into obsession. The thinking is so oppressive, we're so caught up with something or other, and these thoughts are just looping around and around, or we feel we're just looping around and around something, orbiting, caught in an orbit, unable to remove ourselves from that orbit, remove the mind. We can say quite a lot about this and how to work with it skilfully, what's helpful here. One thing, though, is this returning the mind over and over to its object, it really does build that muscle that I was talking about the other day. Over time, the capacity to move the mind out of what is difficult and unwholesome really grows. We get that ability to do that more and more. But it accrues over time. We develop it over time.

If you're caught in obsessive thinking, one thing that can help is sweeping, scanning through the body, the body sensations. What's happening there is the attention is actually moving, rather than being stuck on something. The very movement through physical space of the attention, through the body -- and you can move quite quickly up and down, scanning the sensations -- that helps to move the attention, and get a little elbow room in there.

It's interesting, though, because sometimes as meditators, we're beset by a state like this, and we think, "Well, I should deal with it, I need to deal with it on my cushion, etc., in the meditation hall." But sometimes we need another person. Sometimes I need to share something or talk with another. So not to forget that. But again, not so simple, because sometimes talking with another person [is] really, really helpful, really so helpful, and sometimes, not helpful at all -- actually can make it worse, talking, talking about my issue, my problem again.

What makes the difference? What is it that makes the difference when we talk to another that it seems to help or not help? Compassion obviously is key, when you feel compassionately listened to. That field of that, that softness, that receiving makes a big difference. It can. But there are other factors involved. One of them has to do with beliefs. We can talk to another, and they think they're being empathic: "Oh, yes, yes, I agree. He is terrible. It's awful. Yes, yes." Everything's being reinforced. A view, a belief, assumption is being reinforced through the talking. And the very repeating it in words is just wrapping it tighter sometimes.

This leads on to another possibility when there's a lot of obsession, when the mind is really caught in that -- questioning, dropping in a question, really powerful questions: what am I believing here? What am I believing? Hugely important. Because often, obsession, obsessive thinking, actually rests on beliefs and assumptions, without which it cannot exist. And we don't see what they are. It's a deeper level. Oftentimes they're about what I believe I need, or what I believe I need to be happy. And resting on that, this whole vortex of obsessive thinking. Or I believe it means this or that about me, if this or that happens, and that's bad -- something like that. If there's a hindrance (this is a very mundane example), if there's a hindrance in meditation, restlessness or sloth or desire or something, and I take that, the presence of that hindrance, and I make a conclusion about the self from it -- wrong, a mistake. Wrong view, wrong assumption. Or that it means something bad about my practice, about me. Or in a relationship situation, a person says they're not interested in you, or they no longer want to be in a relationship or whatever, rejection. Is it really a rejection? Is that what that really means? And even if it is, what does it mean about me? Does it mean anything about me? And if they are rejecting me because I am so-and-so, and I really am like so-and-so, is that really so bad? [laughter] Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions.

Question. Questioning is so hugely important in practice. And again, it's an art. So it needs a kind of firm -- what is it to question firmly, to have a boldness in our questioning, or a playfulness? Or both, an impishness. What is it to be cheeky in one's questioning, as well as strong? And sometimes when we do that, it's like you're cracking the foundations of what this obsessive thinking whirlpool is resting on, this whole structure is resting on. And the whole thing can dissolve because you've seen through some of the foundations of it. But sometimes not. Also sometimes not. Sometimes that's not enough.

I'm going to throw out an idea, somewhat dangerous perhaps: maybe when it doesn't, when it doesn't dissolve, maybe there's something necessary. Necessary in that pain, necessary in that whole construction, necessary, if we use a certain language, to the soul, to the psyche. Necessary for me to have to build all this crazy building. Maybe there's something necessary. And maybe it's not that it's necessary because it's stuff from my past and my family and my childhood coming up for healing. Maybe it's necessary for other reasons. The idea that "I need to go through this because it's ...", or "This is stuff coming up from ...", that's a view, that's an assumption too. Could there be reasons sometimes for craziness, for building craziness? Anyway. Questioning belief, very important.

The other factor or condition on which obsession, obsessive thinking often rests is an emotion. It's wrapped up in an emotion. All this mental activity is actually resting on some emotion that's kind of stuck there, if you like, beneath, as a kind of foundation from some perspectives. Again, so helpful: go to the body. Check out what's happening. If you find yourself caught in a lot of thinking, what's happening in the body? Is there some emotion present that I haven't quite picked up on fully, haven't quite recognized? What is it to contact that emotion and come in touch with it? And then address it. And how do I address this emotion, whatever it is? What is helpful? What does this emotion need? That's what it means to address it. What is helpful here? That question, the golden question in Dharma practice: what is helpful?

Sometimes all it needs is this emotion to be recognized and to be held. It just needs holding, presence, a caring of holding, being there with. Do I know how to do that in meditation? Really, really important skill. Sometimes it needs me to do something in life, off the cushion, about that emotion. Sometimes I might need to give something to myself or to that emotion. These are all skills to discern and then to act.

Sometimes when there's a lot of commotion, a lot of obsession going on, find the emotion, and then actually going even down a level, so to speak, right, if you like, at the centre of that emotion is the vedanā of the emotion in the body. Caroline talked about vedanā the other day: this quality of pleasantness or unpleasantness or neutrality. So what is it -- here's all this obsession, I find the body and the emotion in the body, and then, within that emotion, in the body, I tune in, very delicate, to the vedanā changing moment to moment, probably unpleasant somewhere in the body. And I just stay lightly with that, letting it be what it is, moment to moment. Letting it be, letting it be. Just right present. I'm then present, if you like, at what could be the simplest level of what's going on. Something's happening there: I'm simplifying the whole attention by tuning into the simplest level, and that can simplify the whole thing. If I can just stay there, just stay there where it's difficult, but in quite a subtle way.

But there are many possibilities here. I might be angry. I might find I'm consumed and obsessed with this story, and there's lots of anger, lots of papañca. And again, I go to the body and just hold this feeling, this pressure, this heat of anger in the body. And I find, in doing that, if I can hold it skilfully, it begins to, it may, begin to release, dissolve. And it's as if the mind traces down and begins to reveal the hurt, perhaps, underneath the anger. That's more the core of what's going on. It's a deeper level. Probably better -- there'll be more healing at that level, at the level of hurt, if I can contact the hurt. Better, if I need to talk to someone, to talk from the sense of hurt than just of reactive anger.

But equally, it might be that here's this obsession, this papañca and this story that goes around, and again, I go into the body, and what I find is anger. And is it possible to filter out the quality of strength from the anger? We tend to dismiss anger as something always bad, but maybe it has something really positive in it, a quality of strength. And I can feel that strength, and feel it fill the body. It's almost like I'm purifying the anger in a certain sense, through the body.

But it's also hard, you know. Sometimes, again, if you take anger as an example, sometimes the mind might be filled with angry thoughts, and actually I need to listen to those thoughts, rather than just treat them as papañca, a story to be gotten rid of. Maybe there's something in there. Maybe this ranting inside, raging and ranting, I actually need to listen to that. And then, in listening to it, I can get a sense: is this just a petty circling that I'm involved in, or actually is it my voice? Is my voice emerging and asserting itself? Maybe it hasn't had the chance; maybe it's been trodden on for a while, and this anger is actually something positive. I need to listen to that voice, because it's my voice; it's the voice of my truth, my authenticity.

So it's hard, you know, sometimes, because an emotion is this combination of body and thought, and the reaction to both what's going on in body and in thought. Happens with anger, happens with fear. Fear too. There are unpleasant body sensations, and there's also a lot of thinking, spinning. The problem is these two start interacting, they get entangled, and then they feed back off each other, like when you put a microphone next to a speaker it starts feeding back, and it all gets louder and louder, unpleasantly. So what can be really helpful in practice is actually seeing that the body aspects and the thought aspects get entangled, start feeding back, and actually disentangle them in practice, just by focusing on one or the other. Starts to disentangle them a little bit. Sometimes we move toward the thought, and sometimes toward the body. Not always obvious which. Body is usually a good bet.

There's certainly difficulty with thought at this more obvious level. Sometimes when the mind is a bit more settled in meditation, there's a really lovely possibility that's there, and very powerful in the long term, as well, very beautiful. If I just allow the awareness to open up, and be aware of the body sensations as a whole, this whole field here of body sensations flickering, coming and going, arising and passing, this dance, like a cornucopia of body sensations happening in this space, and I just abide there with that openness to body sensations. And then, when I feel okay with that, maybe I open it further and include sounds. Sounds coming from -- it's actually very quiet today, but -- birds and planes, and coming from all different directions, all different distances. And then I'm sitting in a very open awareness, listening, and with the body sensations, and just hanging out there. Letting everything be, letting everything be. Letting things belong to this space -- the sensations, the sounds.

After a while, something will happen: thoughts will begin to include themselves in that space just as another phenomenon, just like sounds, just like body sensations. And it's all just flickering in the space: a thought, a body sensation, a sound. I don't know if any of you saw the fireworks last night? Just stuff arising, colourful, maybe, maybe not so colourful, in the space, and then disappearing. And somewhere else like a shooting star, just arising -- "Wow!" -- and disappearing. And the space kind of remains unperturbed. Get that sense. Can accommodate, can receive it all. Very, very beautiful sense here. Our job is just to see that, and let everything come, let everything go, let everything be in that space.

The space begins to open up, and the perception begins to open up. Body sensations, sounds, and thoughts begin to seem more insubstantial, more inconsequential as well. What's happening there? Something very, very important is happening. One thing is that we're less hooked to thought. Usually we have a thought, we follow it, or we're entangled with it, want to get rid of it or something. But here is an unhooking. Phenomena can just be in the space, unhooked. And also, secondly, unidentified, less identification. Usually we take a thought as meaning something about me. It was a cruel thought, a judging thought, an ugly thought -- it means, I'm cruel, I'm judging, I'm ugly. Does it? Or is it just a thought? Just like a firework in the space. Just something. Belongs to the space. Unhooked, unidentified more and more, something very important can happen in that space. Getting a different perspective, different perception on the whole realm of thinking and thoughts. And if that's repeated -- one-off, it probably won't do much, just a lovely experience; but repeated and repeated, this begins long-term to change our relationship on the whole realm of thinking. You just change the relationship. Less a slave of thought, less badgered by thought. I'm being very brief, skitting through a lot of stuff, but a very beautiful possibility there to cultivate, to explore.

Okay, so I said at that beginning that we can also use thoughts and images very skilfully, very creatively, with mindfulness. Very, very helpful. Actually, if we think about thoughts, there are obvious instances of this anyway. If you use the classical way of doing mettā and using phrases, well, the phrases are thoughts, aren't they? They're skilfully used thoughts. Even in a breath practice -- and I was describing in the last talk on calming -- thinking a little bit about what's engendering well-being, and about how it's going, can actually be really skilful in the moment, very delicate thinking about the breath, about the practice. And again, when things deepen into the more jhānic territory and that deep absorption, etc., sometimes the mind gets so suggestive, it's so suggestive at that point, you can just drop in a little grain of sand, a word like 'rapture' or 'bliss' or 'joy,' drop it into the pool, this grain of sand, and it ripples out, and the mind becomes what was suggested to it. Skilful use of thinking. Very delicate. At a certain level, the mind will be suggestible like that.

You begin to see: actually using thought, and gross thought subsides, and then just subtle thinking is left, there's only subtle thinking left. And one realizes there is this spectrum, gross to subtle, like everything, of thinking, very subtle.

But of course, also like with insight practices, reflecting on death is use of thought; reflecting on ethics and how I'm living my life and the choices that I'm making. Especially now we live in a globalized world where our ethical choices have massive implications. Huge. Approaching emptiness also through analysis in some traditions, mental analysis, logic.

There's also images, the possibility of using images skilfully. In the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta, in the mindfulness sutta, the Buddha talks about imagining yourself in a cemetery and seeing rotting corpses, etc., using the imagination. Or with loving-kindness, if you imagine your friend or whoever it is, see them smiling -- interesting effect. Wishing them happiness, see them happy, see what that does to the practice. Or see them bathed in light, permeated with white, golden light, what does that do? It's a skilful use of imagery. Or working with your own breath and own body, what is it to imagine that you're breathing light? Or imagine that the body has become light, either with the same form or with a more amorphous form. Just light. Imagining it, see what happens. Potentially very powerful skilful use of the imagination. Or to feel, to imagine that the whole body is breathing, you're breathing through your legs as well. Legs have no tubes there anatomically, but you can still imagine and feel it. The imagination leads to the feeling and the sense, and that starts opening things up. Lots of possibilities.

And of course, if we go further, you know, the whole idea of using an image of a deity, Tārā or Avalokiteśvara, Kuan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion, Christ, and imagining that deity, or might be a more fearsome deity like Yamāntaka, one of the wrathful deities, or a spontaneous image that emerges from within (so to speak), not a prescribed, preordained image. Again, when there's a certain amount of samādhi, particularly when there's a certain amount of letting go deeply, it opens up a whole door to a realm of what we could call the imaginal. And I don't just mean, if some of you know this word, nimitta, where a sort of geometric light, geometric design comes up, and you focus on that. I mean images that have a life, seem to have a dynamic vitality of their own. So yes, when there's a lot of letting go in samādhi, but also, interestingly, when there's a lot of upset. When you're quite upset, sometimes right then there's enough energy in the mind from the upset for it to offer forth an image that, if I find the right way of relating to it, can actually be really, really helpful. Depends if -- can I use it well?

All this is a massive area. I just want to say one or two things, because I know that it's relevant for a few of you here. So here's this image that might have come up, and I can, if you like, we can just relate to that image: there it is, and here I am. That's the sense. And maybe I'm relating to it with a sense of devotion. Maybe I'm relating to it through dialogue, inner dialogue. Maybe I'm just relating it through a sense of beauty or awe, just beholding the image, and through that, a certain resonance is happening. This being is resonating with that image and what that image is. Or one takes oneself as that image. One takes that image as if it is oneself. One becomes that image. One becomes that deity, that being.

So all this, this whole realm of practice needs a lot of mindfulness. It's not daydreaming. It needs a lot of mindfulness and a lot of sensitivity, especially to the body, to the emotions, to the energies, to the resonances that are happening. Some of it is very, very subtle, can be very, very subtle.

Just like the Buddha talks about ānāpānasati, mindfulness of in and out breathing (and if you read the sutta, it's talking a lot about coaxing and cultivating certain qualities), you can actually also talk about image*-sati*, if you like: mindfulness of images. And similarly, I'm coaxing and cultivating certain qualities through that. So it's not so much just like the mind coming in and saying, "This image represents this," and putting it in a box. Then it goes dead a little bit. I've categorized something. I've lost the vitality, the interaction, the nuance, the aliveness, the depth of what's happening.

What is happening there, if I'm following this possibility? There's an image and, if you like, beholding that image, or holding it there, there's an energetic and emotional resonance that's happening. That image, Christ or Kuan Yin or some fierce deity, it actually radiates or expresses, embodies certain qualities. And in holding it there, I start to resonate with those qualities, start to absorb some of those qualities. Or through becoming it, again, those qualities are increased. Just like in mettā practice or samādhi practice, we're cultivating qualities. It's a huge part of practice. It's just that here, in the realm of images, there's a greater range opened up, a much greater range of qualities and expressions. And again, I link this back to the last talk about calming. Because here, in this realm of images, may be certain kinds of expressions of whatever -- strength, vitality, sexuality, certain kinds of expressions of sexuality. Someone the other day used the word 'femininity,' a feminine kind of sexuality, or masculine kind, whatever words you want to use, of power, of dynamism. The range is expanded, much expanded.

If you are playing with some of this, it's not only that this or that quality, like it's only compassion that goes with this image or whatever, it's not so simple as that. Actually, this practice can be quite unexpected in what it opens up, quite unexpected. It's not, again, not formulaic. Some understandings emerge through holding this thing that's happening, this image. And like all practices, the more subtle, usually the more powerful. A lot of it is very, very subtle. It doesn't have to be so prescribed as sometimes the way we hear about it.

So there's cultivation possible through images. There are freedoms possible. They can open up different freedoms, freedoms of certain kinds of expression. But also something else. What could we say? A flexibility of self-view, an elasticity of self-view. Part of the problem with the sense of self and the view of self is it gets too solidified: "I am this or I am that." I see myself in only these rigid ways. Through the skilful use of images, that starts getting elastic, the whole thing (as long as I'm not identifying then with this newfound image of myself). It's an 'as if.' It's taken very lightly. And there, all this fluidity, this room for manoeuvre, this elasticity comes into the sense of self. Hugely important for understanding the emptiness of self, getting that space for freedom.

A person might hear all this and say, "That can't be right, because that's not being with what is, if you're playing with images and things like that. That's not being with what is. You're fabricating something. You're making something there. It's not what my experience is. It's not being with my experience." We're going to get more into this, but that kind of concern, understandable, is not realizing something. It's not realizing that actually we're always imagining. We're always imagining. We're always fabricating. Any time we perceive anything, something is being fabricated. We'll come back to that.

Sometimes, you know, a person might have the idea -- and I've actually heard this many, many times from meditators -- that the idea is not to think, to be rid of thought. It's not. That's not the goal here. That's not the goal of meditation. It's certainly possible that that can happen as a state, sure. And it can be very lovely. But I can't live without thinking, can I? Not going to be a very interesting life. I can't -- how am I going to go shopping? [laughs] I can't live without thinking. More fundamentally -- shopping is important for the growth economy! [laughter] What's the problem with thinking? What is the problem with thought? The most pervasive and fundamental problem is actually when the views wrapped up in thinking are believed. That's the ground-level problem with thinking and thought: when the views expressed or wrapped up or underneath a thought are believed and they lead to suffering. When some view is believed and it leads to suffering, that's the problem. That's the more fundamental problem.

You know, when we talk about questioning beliefs, or we talk about opening up this other, much wider sense of awareness, and seeing the ephemerality and the insubstantiality of thought, when we talk about skilful use of different images, we're actually undermining beliefs, we're shaking up beliefs, shaking up views -- deliberately, or relativizing them, or just taking their ground away.

This is the problem: views. Not thoughts, views -- views that lead to suffering. That's the problem. And if we say views are this big, thoughts are actually just one end of that, of that spectrum of views. Even when thought gets quiet, there [are] what we could call conceivings. I don't know if that's the right English word. More subtle views. This is where the problem is, in that range, in the range of views, views that lead to suffering. So we can question beliefs like we question self-view: "Am I really this kind of person? Am I really just this or whatever? Is that really the truth of me?" We can question beliefs. But a lot of the views and conceivings are not articulated. We're not even conscious of them. We're not even conscious, yet they're operating. They determine what we give significance to in any moment in perception. They determine what gets drawn out of the field of impressions, what I notice, what meaning I give things. All of this is determined by view, and a lot of it is not even conscious. This thing coming up, and "It means this," or I interpret it this way. Or about practice and where practice is going, and like we talked about, the different archetypal expressions. All this is view. Some of it is conscious. A lot of it isn't.

Beliefs, assumptions, views, conceptions guide, structure, shape, colour, and fabricate perception, meaning experience. Beliefs, assumptions, views, conceptions guide, structure, shape, colour, and fabricate experience. Our word, our English word 'idea' -- I just found this out -- our English word 'idea' is actually from the Greek idein, which actually means 'to see.' We see by means of ideas. Ideas, views, conceptions. Again, quite subtle. They shape our sight, meaning the way we experience, the way we look at things. And the word also in Greek, eidos, used by the early Greeks, people like Plato, to mean what one sees and also that by means of which one sees. In other words, we see, we experience by means of certain structures of ideas, frameworks of concepts, etc. Everything depends on this. Everything, right here.

We might assume, "No, I perceive the world, I experience the world, and based on what I see and experience, I make certain rational conclusions about things, and those are my views." Hahahahaha! [laughter] Certainly a little bit, but how much the other way around? And what rests on that other way around? What rests on that? Based on these conceivings, the world appears.

Now, I'm going to say something which ... actually one has to see it in meditation; I can't prove it to you, but you have to go deep enough to see it. There's always a conceiving. Wrapped up in any experience of anything, no matter how subtle, no matter how open, there's always some conceiving happening, wrapped up in it. If I'm mindful, if I'm being with something without thought, there are still views and conceivings operating. Just the notion of a subject, even without a personality; just an awareness knowing objects in the world, whatever they are, subject/object duality; the notion of time, a past, a future, the notion even of a present moment -- conceiving. The notion that something exists or doesn't exist -- how else can we even think about things or feel things? Conceiving, all of this. And this is the root problem. This right here is the root problem, the root of dukkha. This is what the Buddha was pointing at, this level. Why? Why is that the root problem? To suffer, to have dukkha, I need to believe in the reality of things. If I don't think something is real, I'm not going to suffer over it, whether that's the self or some other object that I have to experience or don't have to experience, or I'm not able to, whatever it is. I have to believe in the reality. On this conceiving of real things rests all dukkha. It's the sine qua non, the absolute fundamental.

Coming through Zen teachings, and now quite popular, there is this idea of no thinking, no thought, no mind sometimes. And I don't know Chinese at all, but I just wonder sometimes whether actually, because Chinese is quite, unlike English, is quite a poor language, whether they don't differentiate between, say, thinking and the absence of thinking, which is just a meditative state, and conceiving. And actually what's really being meant is no conceiving, beyond conception. Meaning the true nature of things is beyond existing and not existing, it's beyond time, it's beyond subject/object -- notions that are so woven into our very experience of anything. And actually, that's what's really being said. It's been translated in a more superficial way.

Seeing the emptiness of these concepts, seeing the unreality, seeing the emptiness of all things (and the deepest meaning of emptiness means to be beyond concept), that's somehow where we need to eventually open up to, something needs to open to. But if we're barely aware of this, if it's present even when we're not thinking, if they're so subtle, how am I going to recognize all this? How am I going to recognize what the assumptions are or what the views and conceivings are? And how on earth am I going to go beyond them? Because they're there even with mindfulness. Being really mindful of this thing, and no thinking, really there -- still there. How am I going to go beyond it? How am I going to free the mind from that? How am I going to let go of these conceivings?

That's what I want to talk about maybe another time, later on in the retreat. It may actually require the skilful use of thought, the skilful use of eidos, if we use that Greek word, of subtle shifts in conceiving that actually open things up, bring more malleability and flexibility into the perception. And then this starts to reveal something. This starts to unwrap, unbind something, revealing the emptiness. As I said, hopefully, as the retreat goes on, we'll get a chance to talk about that.

Okay, let's have a few quiet moments together.