Spirit of Now

Much of our thinking takes the form of self-talk—conversations we have with ourselves, inside our minds.

Clearly, the original root of this verbal thinking is speech. Speech gave humans the ability to communicate with each other, share experiences, learn from each other, and amass a collective body of knowledge. Using verbal language within our own minds brought many new abilities, including the abilities to rehearse what we might say to another, to recall past conversations, and to plan future actions.

This gave us a whole new way of meeting our needs. We can understand the world around us, how it works, and take steps to improve our circumstances. This is the present root of so much of our thinking.

Needs and Wants

If you look at your own thinking, you will find that a good proportion of it is concerned with meeting a need of some kind or another—the needs for security, approval, love, companionship, status, respect, control, stimulus, comfort, etc..

For many of us, such thinking is going on nearly all the time. Sometimes, it may just be in the background, but it is there, occupying our mental resources. Most of it is a complete waste of time and energy. As Mark Twain famously remarked, “My life has been full of disasters, most of which never happened”.

Looking more closely, you will find that many of these thoughts concern imagined needs—things we imagine we need in order to be happy. We imagine we need someone to regard us in a good light, or we need some new clothes, or we need to eat some gourmet food. These are not true needs; they are “wants” or desires, or in some cases simply preferences. But still they occupy our thoughts.

When we believe we need such things or situations in order to be happy, we become fixated upon getting them, and this leads to no end of thinking about how to get the world to be the way we believe it ought to be.

The Roots of Discontent

This, as so many spiritual teachers have pointed out, is the root of our much of our suffering. By telling ourselves that things need to be different, we create a sense of discontent, a dis-ease.

This is the sad joke about human beings. We all want to find greater contentment, but many of us are so busy worrying about whether or not we will be content sometime in the future, we never allow ourselves to be at ease in the present. Instead, our minds become preoccupied with planning and scheming, worry and anxiety, hopes and fantasies. And when things don’t turn out the way we think they should, we easily fall into anger, grievance, judgment, or depression.

When we do manage to get whatever it is we think we want, we may indeed feel better. But we feel better, not because that particular thing has made us feel better, but because we have, for the moment, stopped creating a sense of discontent. We are no longer disturbing ourselves. But before too long we find something else that is missing, and again fall into discontent. And again start thinking about what we might do to make things the way we want.

Return to Natural Mind

Careful observation of the mind reveals that focusing on a particular thought limits our perception. We become lost in thought, unaware of much is what going on around us. And also what is going on within us; a mind caught up in self-talk is less likely to notice how it is feeling, or how the body feels. Moreover, all this thinking results in a background mental tension. There is a sense of tightness in the mind, a constriction in our consciousness.

The world’s mystical traditions repeatedly affirm that the mind in its natural state—that is, before it is filled with thoughts, worries, plans, and regrets—is a mind that is at ease. In one way or another, through meditation, prayer, dance, ritual, or service, they seek to undo the damaging consequences or over-thinking and return us to the state of ease that is our spiritual birthright.

It is a windy day. Across the street is a seven-storey office block with a flat roof. Two pigeons fly across the rooftop and over the edge. The gusting wind catches the pair, throwing them around in the air, tumbling them down towards the ground.

Nearing the ground, they fly out of the wind. Then around the building and back up on to the roof. They again fly across the roof, and out into the wind, and once again tumble towards the ground.

Then they fly around again. And tumble down again.

And on, and on, time after time, all afternoon.

Who said birds don’t play?

Psychologists run laboratory rats through mazes and to test their learning abilities. But this example in the wild beats any laboratory experiment.

Rats had nested in a rockery outside my kitchen door. Wanting to move them away to a more comfortable location in the forest, I set up one of those humane rat traps with a trap door, that allows one to catch the rat in a cage and then transport it somewhere.

I baited the cage with muesli (all I had on hand, but I thought it would do the job), and waited.

After a while a baby rat ventured by. It found the entrance to the cage, scrambled in eagerly after the food. It crossed the trap door, and was trapped. Good, I thought, I’ll just finish what I am doing, then take it away somewhere more rat-friendly.

The baby rat meanwhile scrambled around, looking for a way out. After a while it hooked a claw under the trap door, pulled it down and ran out, and back into the rockery.

Damn. I won’t leave it alone in the cage next time, I thought.

Five minutes later the baby rat returned. This time it ran straight up to the trap. In through the entrance. Over the trap door. Picked up some food. Turned around. Hooked a claw under the trap door, pulled it down, and ran out.

That baby rat had learned in just one experience. No experimenters running it through tests time and again. A natural intelligence as good as any human in a similar situation.

(The third time I was ready, and grabbed the cage before it had a chance to escape.)

It was recently shown that elephants passed the mirror test for self-consciousness. Along with chimps, orangutans, and dolphins, they recognized that they are seeing themselves in the mirror. However, other animals that may not pass the mirror test in its hard form, i.e. a positive recognizing themselves, do pass a softer form of the test in that they do not interpret their reflection as that of another.

Many times I have watched pet dogs and cats walk past a mirror. Occasionally they give their reflection a glance, but mostly they take no notice. In so doing they demonstrate that, although they may not recognise themselves in the reflection, they do know that they are not seeing another dog or cat.

I suspect this more rudimentary “not-other” awareness (as opposed to true self-awareness) is to be found in any animal that drinks from water. As an animal leans forward to drink, it is likely to see its own reflection face to face. if it interpreted this as another animal looming close, it would probably back off (and, if continually repeated, die of thirst). For such creatures, there is a clear evolutionary advantage in the inhibition of the “other” response when seeing their own reflection in water.

This more prevalent “not-other” awareness is probably an important step in the emergence of true self-awareness.