The Thought You Believe, Is The Experience You Get

Your experience follows your thought like the cart follows the horse. However, though the mind is a wonderful tool when used wisely it is also a magician at creating the illusion of problems. It is a storyteller and we tend to believe almost everything it tells us. Come along and find out how to see this for yourself. There is also a short guided meditation.

Transcript

Hello.

We all have a picture of life.

Waking in the morning.

After a few minutes,

We've created this picture of how we expect the day to be.

Or how we would like the day to be.

This picture includes ourselves.

We like to be happy and good at our job.

Things to go smoothly.

Our picture can include how we'd like other people to be.

How we'd like those people to relate to me.

I want them to like me.

I want the boss to like the work that I do.

I want the traffic lights to be on green.

And whatever else your picture may include.

All the pictures of life vary from person to person,

Of course.

Now,

This picture is never met.

The picture never,

Ever,

Actually manifests.

Comes into being.

Because it can't.

There may be little things.

You may get a few people who are nice to you.

You may get a few traffic lights on green.

But that picture will not be met.

Now,

That picture is not actually the problem.

We all need,

To some degree,

An expectation of how we expect the day will be.

We wouldn't function otherwise.

We have a picture.

But what's primary here is not the picture,

But how it is held.

How we relate to that picture.

Do we grasp onto it?

Trying to make it happen?

Making ourselves tense and rigid?

Because this picture that I have of the world,

Of at least my world,

Needs to be met for me to feel okay.

And it's never met.

It can't.

Because there are 7 billion other people on the planet with a picture just like yours and mine.

And to varying degrees,

We're all grasping onto this picture.

Now,

This grasping onto the picture,

Or let me use another metaphor.

Like,

I spent decades trying to get all my so-called ducks in a row.

Trying to micromanage life so it would go my way.

I would avoid certain people and meet up with other people who made me feel safe and secure.

I would avoid certain situations because they made me feel uncomfortable.

Certain people may challenge me so I'm not going to spend time with them.

And that's how I spent my life.

Trying to make reality fit my picture.

So that I didn't get upset,

Didn't get tense,

Didn't get anxious.

And what did that make me?

Tense and anxious.

Because underneath all that grasping and rigidity to create my world,

To get the world to fit my picture,

Is a knowing that it can't be done.

So it's this trying to get all our ducks in a row.

Which means I get all my feelings to be just as I want them to be.

And the external world just as I want it to be.

And it was exhausting.

So that metaphor of the ducks in a row,

I think it's quite an interesting metaphor.

Because they're never fully in a row for very long,

Are they?

There's always a duck that falls down or wanders off,

Or they all start fluttering their wings and going their separate ways.

It's like,

Oh no,

Oh no.

Life's happening.

It shouldn't be happening like this.

Why are my ducks in a row?

And that's the anxiety.

That's what creates this sense of helplessness.

This sense of frustration,

Distress and mental suffering.

Now,

What do we do?

What's the way forward with this?

It's letting go of the whole trying to control game.

We are not going to control this.

We can't even control our own health.

And when you've reached a certain age,

That becomes more and more evident.

We cannot control it.

It's out of our hands.

It's the will of the universe,

If you like.

Life is king.

We are not king.

Life is king.

When I say we,

I mean our own little egoic personal will.

So how do we let go of this picture of life?

How do we loosen our grip?

Because it's okay to have a picture of life.

I'd rather be with people who are nice to me than people who are not.

So how do we let go?

How do we relax the grip?

Well,

We could say that that's the whole point of meditation in the way that I'm sharing it.

And we will have a meditation in a little while.

But I just want to share another way of looking at it.

It's not often seen this way,

But.

.

.

The thought that you believe is the experience you will get.

I'm going to repeat that.

The thought which you believe is the experience you will get.

So in this case,

Your experience is like the cart,

And your belief stroke thought is like the horse.

So where your beliefs go,

If you attach to your beliefs,

Your thought,

If you believe the thoughts are telling you the truth,

And most of us do,

Then your experience will follow.

So if you have an anxious thought,

And you're immersed in it,

You will feel anxious.

You will have anxious emotions.

It's just the way things are.

So what do we do?

We start to see that,

Or we can see,

That thoughts are not facts.

Because these pictures of life are made up of thoughts and images.

And see,

The primary problem is that we fixate on the world of thought and images.

That's our primary fixation.

Almost like our primary addiction is to our thoughts and images.

Which are just playing out on what I call the mind screen.

Just like a TV screen,

But it's in the mind,

So to speak.

Just a metaphor.

Our attention is immersed and fixated on that.

Immersed in the screen,

In the content,

In the story,

And fixated on it.

So whatever appears on the mind screen,

We're there with it.

We're experiencing that.

But thoughts are just symbols.

They're just pointers.

That's what they are.

For example,

And I've done this before,

But I think it's quite a revealing little technique.

If all the internal dialogue,

Your internal dialogue,

All turn to a language you don't understand.

Let's say Chinese,

Or German,

Or Dutch,

Or Hindi,

Whatever.

A language you don't understand at all,

Then what?

Let's say that thought arises,

The primary core belief of I'm not good enough.

In its many guises.

What if those thoughts arise,

But in a language you don't understand?

Then what?

It would lose its power,

Wouldn't it?

They have no power of their own.

Thoughts don't have their own power.

The power is given to them.

We give power to them.

We give our power to them.

What do I mean?

And this is how we grasp onto that picture of life.

Because I want this picture to be a reality.

And then I'll be okay.

So,

What we need to do is to start to see that these thoughts have a life of their own.

You are not thinking those thoughts.

That may seem a bit strange,

But you're not.

If you were thinking them,

You would stop.

You would just have nice thoughts.

The world of thought is like a program inside a computer.

At some age,

Maybe about the age of two or three years old,

We're plugged into this program.

And as we grow and interact with other people in the world,

The program develops in a certain way.

Each person's programming is slightly different.

But,

We all have that program.

And part of that program is the arising of thoughts.

And it's almost like this world of thought.

It's like an energy system.

It's like a program on a computer that needs to be plugged in to the mains electric for it to function.

It's the same with this program.

It needs energy to function.

Where does it get its energy from?

It gets it from you.

It's getting its energy from you.

From your attention.

So,

A thought arises.

And what do you do?

What do we do?

The energy or the attention moves towards,

And this happens as quick as a flash,

Moves towards the thought and then gets lost in it.

It loses itself in the content of that thought,

Of that mind movie.

That movie on the screen.

And so,

Whatever the thought stroke belief is there,

The story,

Is what we will experience.

So,

The thought which you believe is the experience you will get.

It just follows.

Now,

If you don't believe that thought,

Then what?

You're here.

Alive.

At ease.

Alert to the world.

To the wind and the trees and the sound of the birds and the person before you.

That's the difference.

And that's what I look at in nearly all the work I do.

It's looking at this area of how the mind is creating this false reality.

And we kind of know it's false.

We kind of have an inkling of,

This is not quite right.

And if you're listening to this,

There's an opening.

There's a waking up.

So,

Let's have a short meditation where we're going to look at this.

How we approach these intrusive thoughts.

These thoughts that we take to be real.

So,

Just setting yourself up whilst I say a few words.

Just sitting fairly upright in a chair,

But relaxed.

Not rigid and stiff.

Just relaxed.

Or you can lay down if you wish.

And maybe keep your eyes open if you lay down.

Now,

What we're going to do is look at the difference between identifying with a thought and identifying a thought.

Do you see the difference?

It's one word,

Four letters,

And it's with.

That's where it happens.

When we identify with a thought,

Oh,

Oh yeah,

Oh.

And we're involved and we're immersed.

But if we can identify a thought as a thought,

We're not immersed.

We don't enter into its world.

So,

Just taking a couple of deep breaths and then relaxing into the body.

Breathing down into the hara on the out-breath.

Breathing down.

Down into below the navel.

That's it.

Just sensing your contact with the seat or the surface.

And just shifting your attention to the movement of the breath.

Just feeling that movement,

That rhythm.

I just want you to feel it.

Not thinking about it.

Just feel it.

You're in the body.

You're feeling the breath.

Now,

At some point,

A thought will arise and you will disappear into its world.

And the moment you notice that happening,

Which you will at some point,

I want you just to give some space to the thought and let it float away.

Let it melt away.

Don't make a big deal out of this.

Very simple.

It's got to be neutral.

Just let the thought drift away.

Just like a cloud in the sky or a bird.

And then fall back into the body and feel the breath once again.

I'll go quiet for a few moments for you to be able to see this and to follow the instructions.

You may notice how you want to flirt with thought.

Just being tickled by a thought.

Just let it float on.

Release it.

That's it.

Keep it simple.

Thoughts are arising.

They're appearing.

And they're going to disappear.

They're going to pass through.

But we grasp onto them.

I'm asking you just to release that grip.

Free them and free yourself at the same time.

And then you're here in the body,

Feeling the breath.

Okay,

I just want to finish with a few words.

I just wanted to spend four or five minutes just looking at that.

Just getting practical.

But we don't resist the thought.

We don't try not to think.

Don't fall into that.

And don't try to push them away.

We follow nature's way.

And nature's way is for a cloud to appear and disappear.

The same with a thought.

It will appear.

And if we leave it alone,

It will disappear.

It will pass through.

But we grasp onto it.

So at that point,

Just release it.

No big deal.

Don't make a big deal out of it.

Neutral.

And then come back home to the body and the breath.

And the more and more we do that,

The more we weaken this repetitive grasping and clinging and fixation with thought.

And you get your life back.

So just before we end here,

I just want to say that I'm only talking about self-centered thinking or egoic thinking here.

I'm not talking about practical or functional thinking,

Creative,

Action-oriented.

They're fine.

They're what the mind is designed for.

To be creative.

To be useful.

It's only the self-centered egoic thinking.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Reviews

Incredible! Thank you so much for this talk. The egoic mind has been the bane of my existence since as long as I can remember. I have a vivid imagination, and so the constant thoughts of doom and blowing things up to be way worse than they are when in fact, they are harmless has caused me to live through all kinds of suffering, which was completely unnecessary, caused by the mind. Having tools to be able to let that go is what I need most of all. Thank you. 🙏

I loved the imagery of thoughts appearing and disappearing just like clouds. Letting them float away without holding on. Thank you 🙏

Simply great !
Thank you very much, we touched the core of the 'problem' here.
Highly recommended.
🙏🙏🙏

I love how you combined many of your live teachings into this one talk and meditations - a perfect one for me to return to, but, drumroll please, I am getting better about not believing my thoughts 🥳🥳🥳