We all have countless thoughts in our head – I’ve heard that there are probably a thousand a second! I wouldn’t be surprised. And all those emotions we have: they’re all rooted in these thoughts. I call them my roommates. You’ve got your useful roommates: love and kindness and common sense and self-confidence; then there are the crazy ones: we know them so well: anger and anxiety and low self-esteem and depression. And they seem to run the show, don’t they?
We need to learn to pay attention to them all, all the conversations in our head. Why? Because they determine our happiness and our suffering. It’s a slow process. We need to learn to want to pay attention first, and know that it’s possible, and we get more wise as we go on.
The key thing about Buddhist psychology – and this is a unique approach to the mind – is that there are basically two categories of states of mind, as we’ve just indicated: the appropriate, reasonable states of mind that are common sense, kind, generous, wise, forgiving, self-respectful, and then the neurotic ones, the fearful ones, attachment, anger, resentment, jealousy: the “I”-based, fear-based thoughts that make us unhappy and separate from others.
These neurotic states of mind can be quite subtle, and we usually only notice them when we feel emotional. If you feel uncomfortable, that’s the sign that it’s one of the neurotic thoughts. If you feel spacious – like if you’re with your grandchild, and there’s no threat and you’re full of affection for this person – you know there’s more positive thoughts prevailing at that moment. If you’re with a person who makes you feel uncomfortable, you know there’s some kind of anger there.
They’re simply referred to as positive and negative, or virtuous and non-virtuous; we need to learn to see the difference, identify one from another – and this skill of distinguishing them gets better and better and better.
One approach in meditation is to simply observe the thoughts without commentary. We develop the skill to step out of our head, because normally we’re just swimming in our thoughts completely unconsciously, or we’re totally buying into the nonsense in there. We need to learn to step back.
Think that all the uncontrolled thoughts are a hundred people outside your window, all chatting away, and instead of getting involved in what they’re saying, “What does he mean by that?” and “How dare they say this!” you just let them say whatever they like and have no opinion.
Inevitably, out of the corner of your mind you can’t help but notice, “There’s anger, there’s jealousy, there’s resentment” – and that’s good! But you just let them come and go.
Then you bring this skill to bear when you get off your meditation cushion and you’re doing the dishes or driving the car. Whereas normally you wouldn’t even notice you’re angry with the car that jumps in front of you until it vomits out your mouth, now, because of practice, you’re conscious of the anger in your mind and you will grab it. The emotion is there, but you can hear the conceptual story that informs the anger.
And then what do you do with it? This is a huge step. Normally, we totally believe what anger is saying, we’ll get totally caught up in it, but here the practice is: don’t believe what it’s saying, don’t believe the angry story. Maybe you can’t stop it right then because it’s so strong, because it feels so real, but you practice not believing it, not buying into it.
In other words, you’d bring out your good roommates – patience, common sense – and you’d argue with it. Your sensible roommates argue with the angry roommate.
First we develop the habit of allowing the thoughts to come and go: such a good discipline. And this equips us with the ability to be more conscious in day-to-day life, and not only to notice what’s there but to actually not believe the stories and then change them by arguing with them: by being our own therapist.
In this way we can mold our mind into any shape we like, as Lama Zopa Rinpoche says.