Self-Control of the Mind

This book will show you how to end unwanted, unpreventable, compulsive thinking and free your mind to be here now, perceiving reality without the filter of thought. It is not easy to do so: it took me thousands of hours of dedicated practice. But quieting the mind is a skill basically no different from learning to walk or talk. It can be learned, and the process is straightforward. This book is a straightforward guide through this process by one who has completed it.

           More than anything else, learning this ability depends on remembering to pay attention to both the world around and to what the mind itself is doing. The current default mode of the mind is a) sleepwaking – simply not paying attention – or b) getting caught by thought – by thoughts that percolate up and engage our attention before we even know it, and then are very difficult to disengage from. We must end these habits in order to be free of thoughts that prevent us from perceiving reality as it is – or rather, from perceiving reality as clearly as humans are capable of.

The basic model for picturing the process is as a three-fold progression from being entrapped in habitual conceptual thought, to attentiveness to the sensory world, to pure awareness. This model can be used as a simple map while you are sitting meditatively practicing and also while engaged in daily activities. In brief, the levels are:

materia – unable to escape habitual and compulsive thoughts and emotions, material fears, desires, and addictions. This is the level of conceptual thought and unquestioning acceptance of the world as presented by the senses and by enculturation into the reality generally shared by society. That is consensus reality. Common sense reality. Materia is Latin for matter.

limina – attending to the sensory world, actively aware of the thoughts and emotions that spontaneously arise, without engaging with them. Focusing on the present moment only, in its entirety. Focusing on the breath is an excellent “home base.” This is the midpoint between an untrained, cluttered mind and one that uses thought when appropriate for understanding and decision-making – and not allowing thoughts to hijack attention whenever they happen to appear. Limina is the plural of the Latin limen, threshold.

caelestia – pure awareness, perceiving without thinking about it. Open receptiveness. Attention to the mind itself. Insights, intuition, and empathy. Letting go, with no force exerted on the mind, no effort. It takes a lot of effort to have thoughts constantly going on. We become so used to it that we don’t realize the expense of energy involved. Caelestia is the Latin word for the heavenly bodies, stars, and planets. Here it simply refers to that which appears in a mind free of compulsive thinking and commonsense reality – the internalized model of reality we have been taught to assume is self-evident. Caelestia includes brief images that disappear almost as soon as they appear. These brief images are identified by the sense that they are recollections: somehow, very faintly, they are familiar. It includes the world of dreams, of understanding experience in the ‘material world’ as having a symbolic aspect.

These terms have a secondary reference to the fact that modern science and ancient spirituality teach that the world is by no means as it appears to the senses and natural assumptions. The material world is a crude model of reality, and very limited. It is the human destiny to go beyond this childish model.               

Before starting, keep in mind that each of us is unique. Alter these guides as seems fit to your own experience and learning style. That’s how you learned to walk and to talk, and how you will learn to take control of your own mind. If you are unable to control negative and destructive thoughts and feelings, you will need to find help to overcome that particular difficulty. We all have our limits. Success is doing our best. The only failure is not to try. Freeing the mind from sleepwaking and “naïve realism” is not a small thing. That’s why it has taken humans thousands of generations longer to learn to do it than it took to learn to walk on two legs and use symbolic language. This ability is correspondingly more advanced and powerful. You are one of the pioneers. You can do it! It is healthy in every way. Go for it.

What One Has Done, All Will Do.

Self-Control of the Mind is an instruction guide that will take you from the first steps of exercising control over uninvited, unwanted thoughts and feelings – to perception without the filter they impose. A filter of words, concepts, and ego-centered emotions at this point you will have a free mind, no longer controlled by automatic processes that are like a thick layer of sleep – or sludge – covering a mind meant to be directly aware of the world. When this layer is removed, a vast space of silence appears, in which you find insights images, and feelings that are the foundation of a new model of reality: the world before it has been interpreted by sensory input and the patterns that enculturation has imposed. 

           The key to making the transition from a life that is primarily asleep to being awake at all times is to form the habit of remembering to stay attentive. The process of reaching this stage of human development can be thought of as a game. It has a clear, attainable goal, and clear feedback on your progress toward it. It will require a lifestyle that is quite at odds with accepting that reality is pretty much the way it appears to the external senses. This seems to be similar to what Quakers call the inner light, but it is not limited to Christianity or any religion.

           I don’t know any better way to describe it than the sense that Consciousness comes first, before material reality. Consciousness has created what humans call “material reality.” All things are one. They can be distinguished as separate for different purposes, but fundamentally there is only one system. We love our neighbor as ourself because we are our neighbor and all things. That is, we are all part of the whole. Thus, while the body dies, our true, fundamental self does not. We are fundamentally aware, and the body is a tool of that awareness. Finally, there is a purpose.

           But don’t take my word for it! This is a perspective we are all working toward. At least, that’s my experience and the conclusion I’ve come to. Others, wiser than I, have come to this conclusion as well.

Before the first lesson in playing this game, it might be helpful to have a clear image of the mental state while sitting, once the ability has been learned. There may be many different images, or mental states, that accompany conscious attention free of words, concepts, and identifying with the organism. But this model can serve as a starting point:

           There is a felt, imagined physical space roughly in front of, or maybe behind, the closed eyelids. It is here that attention is held. Thus, rather than a vague floating mentality, one has a home to enter, in which thoughts are left outside, and attention is given easily to that which arises in their absence. An unbroken, clear focus is maintained, and rapt attentiveness without interference from thoughts or drifting inattention. You can do this because you have found the Spot: a clear center of silence which, as it lengthens, becomes increasingly interesting and rewarding. Balancing attention without falling into thought. Without any slacking of attentiveness. This Spot is the feeling that accompanies perception that is no longer crowded by incessant thoughts, or swimming in emotions.

           Why spend a lot of time learning to stop the automatic, compulsive production of thoughts and mental representations? There are three reasons:

           First, the achievement itself is a great thing. Overcoming this compulsion is a tremendous accomplishment. Edmund Hillary made the first ascent of the Earth’s tallest mountain “because it was there.”[2] Controlling the automatic activity of the mind is just as great an accomplishment, and yields even greater results: a new dimension to explore.

           Second, the world you will perceive! The eye has not seen, nor ear heard, that which awaits those who are able to perceive reality without the veil of mental representations. Thoughts, concepts, and mental representations are a filter that distorts reality. You can remove the filter and experience direct perception. When your tame thought, a huge mass is removed that has been covering awareness – not just of the world, but of what is occurring in your own mind. This is an amazing world in itself, witnessing these subconscious thoughts and images.

           Third, living without an automatic, compulsive mental commentary makes you free. It is existence without the chain of enculturation and bondage to obvious, but incomplete and inaccurate, sensory reports.

           A fourth reason may be added: The catastrophic events of the sixth great extinction and climate change are a direct result of Modernity’s restriction of knowledge to what is perceptible to the senses and measurable. Physicist Brian Greene writes that, “Physics in general, and quantum mechanics in particular, can deal only with the measurable properties of the universe. Anything else is simply not in the domain of physics.”[3] This has led to the insistence that the basic and only features of the universe are physical, and in themselves meaningless – they simply follow physical laws. And nothing else exists but these physical laws and physical things. This materialism, or physicalism, brought the assumption that there is no meaning to existence. It encouraged those who benefited materially from this assumption to impose it on the economic, educational, medical, political, cultural, and even religious structures of society, thereby limiting the possibilities for human achievement to the material plane – the world created by thoughts and mental representations. When one experiences the world without mental representations, the error of limiting knowledge and reality to the material becomes obvious. Only through this experience can the crises of Modernity be cured. Modernist empiric science and philosophy caused the problem; they cannot cure it. International agreements and policies will not resolve the crises if humans persist in perceiving the world as nothing but a result of measurable physical forces playing out meaninglessly. If perception doesn’t change, the way we interact with the world will not change.

But such a serious cosmic purpose need not be involved in learning the ability to control one’s own mind (as a baby learns to control its bowels). The first three reasons will do. It’s a challenge. A game. You can do it without giving a darn about ultimate reality.

This ability is a natural part of human development, even though until now it has been a rare accomplishment, and considered the legendary achievement of enlightened beings, divine men, and mystic adepts. The self-control of the mind is, rather, as essential to complete humanity as is the ability to walk upright, make tools, and construct symbolic language. Humans are far from complete, mature beings. A look at the world society and at the level of political leadership, the waste of human potential, the immaturity and inability to think clearly and make good decisions on the part of the mass of humanity, should make this clear.

           The ability to control our own mind will mark a significant advance in the development of humans, perhaps even greater than walking on two legs, tool-making, and symbolic language.

 The ability to focus the mind and have it stay focused without wandering is a remarkable and wondrous ability. thezone.earth provides a way for ending compulsive thought, immersion in emotions, and the inattentive living that cloud awareness; and for bringing forth higher consciousness – direct perception of reality – which is an embryonic possibility in human consciousness, and must be intentionally cultivated in order for the seed to sprout.

                   This technique can be practiced as a game, with others or by oneself. It involves uncluttering the mind of trivial, repetitive, and compulsively produced contents, and making note of what appears in the resulting silence, the space between thoughts.

 The life of the organism is a period of gestation no less than embryonic life in the womb. Bringing it successfully to term means perceiving that the material world is not reality, but the womb in which we learn to perceive reality: direct perception, without concepts, words, or any mental representations. Once we perceive the world without interpreting it according to these things, we are free to make distinctions in many different ways.

           Thus, we perceive that we are all that has influenced us and that we are influenced. The individual identity is a fiction of commonsense realism. Once reality is perceived clearly without the distortion of concepts and representations, then concepts and representations can be used as tools for comprehension and communication in the very limited social world of conventionally understood reality.

           At least one purpose of the human organism’s life is to bring forth direct consciousness of reality, beyond the inaccurate representations of the five external senses and the erroneous assumption that the material world constructed according to such naïve realism is the ultimate reality.

 Philosophies and religions put into words and concepts, something actually tran­scending words and concepts. Words and concepts are made up by the organism. They may be necessary, but reality has no words or concepts. It simply is. Reality is one. Words and concepts divide. And the inaccurate perception of naïve realism, which doesn’t question appearances, creates the idea that we are separate. And thus the fear that because this ‘separate’ organism dies, we die. But the organism never actually was separate. It only has a separate identity because that’s how it appears to the senses, and because that’s the story we constantly repeat to ourselves and teach children, who come to assume it is self-evident truth before they are capable of questioning it.

           This is not to deny the separate, individual aspect of the organism, only to insist that this aspect is not all there is. For some quite valuable purposes, it is useful to consider the organism as an autonomous entity. Huge problems arise when the organism’s embeddedness in its context is ignored, which is the error of Modernity.

           When we end compulsive thinking and production of mental representations of reality, and perceive the world attentively and directly, without the filter of thought, we perceive that beneath and beyond thought, concepts, and all mental representations lies an entirely different mental experience, far closer to reality itself. This nonconceptual, intuitive experience sets conceptual knowledge in context as an interpretation of a prior nonconceptual experience.

           The Land Beyond Thought is where we are journeying in this book. The voyage is not always easy, but from the beginning, you will experience insights and delights that are beyond the realm of every day, material reality, no matter how luxurious it may be. This is a different world, and you will soon realize that the material plane is a child’s idea of reality. To attain a direct perception of reality is to attain full humanity. You have not fully developed until you can control the activity of your own mind, and perceive the inner and outer world without the filter of thought. Taste and see.