OK, now finally. Let’s really fool ourselves into meditation. Think.
Close your eyes and sit there and try hard to think about something. This will be most effective if you have some big problem going on. Or maybe you’re studying for a test. That would be perfect… to sit there and think over and over what you are trying to memorize.
Stretch that thinking brain as much as you can.
There are a couple of reasons to do this.
One is because this is the exact opposite of what you’re ever told in meditation classes. Might as well do the opposite and see what happens. I mean, hey. It might be an adventure.
Reason two is that you might actually get smarter and solve a bunch of your problems. Think them through. That brain’s there for something? Right?
Number three: You will start noticing that you can consciously think. You can consciously change your mind about something. That’s big to realize. If you can consciously improve your critical thinking abilities. If you can think more and more clearly through effort. Then obviously that brain is not you. You are the one who is directing the brain.
This is very important because there’s going to be so many times where your brain thinks really, really stupid things. You’re going to get something really, really wrong. You’re going to make some sort of horrible mistake. And if you know that your brain is not you, it’s just the brain, the thinking process, then you can get over it quickly. It’s not you. Maybe it’s your conditioning. Maybe it was even your education. Maybe you were taught something wrong.
If you know that that is not you, you won’t cling to it. The more you know that that’s not you, the closer and closer you can get to finding out who exactly you are.
Who is the master of your brain. Who is it?
Like, I sit here and decide I’m gonna lift my arm? I decide it, and my body lifts up the arm. But I did that. The arm didn’t lift itself.
I decide I’m gonna touch my nose. I lift my finger, direct it to my nose and, plop. Touch my nose. It was me in charge. I thought of it. And then I did it.
“I” did it.
This is what we’re looking for in our meditation. To know who we are.