This post is about learning to think for yourself. All the techniques and practices are just boats to help us cross from one side to the other. We don’t need to carry the boat with us beyond the crossing.
Another analogy is to think about the teachings and preachings of learned people as a box of crayons. The crayons look lovely and have pretty colors, they entice us to draw pretty pictures. Each crayon has its own charm. We can’t stop talking about the crayons to others because we think what wonderful tools they could be for drawing pretty pictures. However, we don’t often draw pictures with them. In fact, we rarely do. We stop at acquiring the crayons, perhaps some go as far as trying them once or twice and then they remain unused in our drawers where all the other previously bought crayons are also resting.
I want to share my experience with my spiritual practice and how this point was made apparent to me. I have been meditating for the last 20 plus years. It was like a calling. At 25, when I first heard about the concept of Vipassana, specifically the 10 day silent retreat, I was attracted to it like a bee to honey. I didn’t know the details of what was involved but the idea of immense quiet and learning a skill that wasn’t appealing to many was intriguing to me.
Of course, I struggled through it, especially difficult for me was day 3 and 4 when the silence got too loud. I felt that I would go insane. Soon, the mind quietened and I didn’t struggle as much thereafter. Day 10 was beautiful, albeit, the commotion that ensued once everyone started to talk was a bit heady. And then, the impossibly noisy train ride back from Igatpuri to Dadar was particularly torturous.
I was trying to carry the boat with me. I realised, much later, that the skill I was learning was not stopping my mind and being still, but of the witnessing of the comings and goings in my mind. The witness who is consciously watching and does not react. While reacting is an unconscious event.By trying to carry the Vipassana boat with me, I was lugging with me the weight of the pointers that were meant to only show the direction.
This deep insight came to me much later. Even after my 8th silent retreat. It was slow coming, this realisation. I think it is subjective to how deeply conditioned our mind is.
Mostly Inaccurate Neural Activity (MIND) – I find this definition of the mind very helpful and also very funny.
This happened to me again with the sangha of plum village in Singapore. I really enjoyed the focus on self-compassion and joyful being in the practice but I was trying to carry the boat with me. Instead, now I choose live joyfully in every moment OR to draw pictures with the crayons.
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