Drunk on Thought

Hello,

Welcome.

One way of looking at the human condition is that of as being addicted or intoxicated.

Let me set the scene.

A newborn,

An infant,

All they are is pure being.

Pure being is in the forefront.

That's really all we are for the first few months,

Year or so,

Whatever.

Mind is really non-existent.

But at some point,

Six months,

A year,

18 months,

Whatever,

Mind starts to be developed.

And we start to learn language.

Then what happens is our interest moves from,

Our centre of being moves from pure being to mind.

So mind now comes to the foreground.

We're two years old,

Five years old,

Teenager.

And mind is almost totally dominant.

And pure being is back here.

We've forgotten about pure being.

We start to ignore it because we become intoxicated,

Identified with mind.

It's like we are drunk.

Human beings are drunk on thinking,

On thought,

On ideas,

On theories.

That's what's happening.

And so when we talk about enlightenment or awakening or whatever it is,

Really what that is,

Is a process of sobering up,

Of sobriety.

Enlightenment or,

And I don't even like that term,

But it's still used,

Isn't it?

We get an idea of what's meant by it.

It's not something cosmic with bright lights and a chorus of angels and anything like that.

There's no bells and whistles.

It's the natural state.

It's when we've sobered up from being drunk on thoughts.

I mean,

Just look at just half an hour of your time during the day where your attention goes to.

Where does it go to?

Mind,

Thinking,

Past,

Future.

We're drunk on past and future.

And it does us no good at all.

It's okay to think about the future,

Obviously for practical purposes.

And the past.

For functional reasons.

But it's almost like,

In a sense,

We live there.

So what that means is,

We overlook the obvious.

We overlook now.

We overlook this.

This beingness that hasn't changed,

Hasn't left.

We haven't left it.

We are just ignoring it.

That's all that's happening.

Our attention is being hijacked.

Our attention keeps going to thoughts.

To the thought bar.

Taking a shot of anxiety,

A shot of hope,

A shot of I'm lonely and whatever it is,

I'm not good enough.

And it's all language.

It's all stories.

So what I'm sharing with you is just a process of sobering up.

Which is actually what we're looking for.

It's just one way of looking at it.

But I think it's a good way of looking at the predicament of the human being.

Just about all human beings,

Unless you've looked at this and seen through the game,

Become sober.

You can't keep going to the thought bar expecting to sober up.

How do you sober up?

Let's have a few moments of sobriety.

Just a few.

Just a few.

All you do is come away from the bar,

The thought bar.

Come out of thought.

Back here.

Back to this sense of presence.

Even back to the breath.

Back to that silence.

The silence before words.

Can you just sense that?

It's not shouty.

It's not loud.

Can you hear that silence?

Can you feel that stillness?

It's subtle,

But it's the most obvious thing there is.

Because it's closer to you than your own breath.

It's closer to you than the thought,

Stillness,

Silence.

That stillness,

That silence is there before the thought arises.

It's what sees the thought.

That's true meditation.

Just resting there.

Become intimate with that.

Let that reveal itself.

That sobering up.

Now we might reach for the next shot,

The next hit.

Oh,

There we go,

Spinning.

Then what do we do?

Now,

Just come back to that which is silent and still.

Now the mind will look for something dramatic,

Sensational.

That's why it ignores it.

That's why we ignore this.

We overlook it.

It's the most obvious thing.

What happens is,

What is obvious becomes more obvious.

Or what is obvious becomes obvious,

Instead of ignored.

And there's a softening into it.

There's a relaxation into it.

It's so simple.

Other names for it can be spaciousness or aware space.

Just that aware space.

How magnificent is that?

You are aware right now.

I'm aware right now.

But that awareness is not an object.

It's not a thing.

It's not located anywhere.

Because I can't find it in the so-called head.

I can't find it in there.

There's awareness of the head.

There's even a kind of awareness of being aware.

Now,

Don't get too caught up with that.

I'm just,

You know,

I'm just withering on.

Yeah,

Repeat this many times.

Come back.

All these sessions are sort of similar.

They're all about sobering up.

All about seeing how we suffer and bringing it to an end.

And seeking is suffering.

Okay,

Bye-bye.