2011-06-30

Thoughts come and thoughts go

This clip is from the retreat, Releasing Emotional Reactions, session 6.

If you have more time listen to the lead up to this section here.

Thoughts come and go (from RER06 00:07:09.50 - 00:09:29.30)

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Thoughts come and thoughts go....
In that simple sentence, there is the key to freedom. A thought comes: “I’m angry.” And when that thought arises, frequently we don’t recognize it as a thought. It becomes a fact. So now we’re angry. And all kinds of things follow from that, usually not very helpful things. But all of you have enough experience in your meditation to know that if you sit, and the thought “I’m angry” arises, and you do absolutely nothing, it wanders around and then it goes. So thoughts come, and thoughts go. That’s one of the doors to freedom—if you live it. It’s not enough to understand it intellectually. One has to live it. So this method of practice is very much about living the direct experience of mind just as it is.