How Does the Mind Get Away With This?

Do you lack happiness? Do you lack clarity about what your true nature is? Do you lack inner peace?

Then you may want to watch what your mind is doing, because your mind is the only problem here. Nothing is wrong, otherwise. The mind says something is wrong, and so it seems it is. The mind says something is lacking, and so it seems it is.

You might want to watch your mind, and see how it convinces you that something is wrong, and something is lacking. The best circumstance under which to watch it is when it is preoccupied with something juicy, and doesn’t notice you’re watching it. So give it something juicy to work on, and then watch it. Set an elaborate trap for your mind. Give it a problem it can’t resist, one it will go on hunting to answer relentlessly, tirelessly, ceaselessly. And then you’ve got it where you want it.

Don’t worry about the seeming contradiction that the same mind which is making up the trap is the very one being trapped. Just leave that riddle aside for now – it resolves itself later.

What kind of juicy thing shall you feed your mind? Well, how about the most incessantly troubling problem you have: What do I really want? No, what do I want even more than that? And what do I want even more than that? What’s the bottom line for me, the one thing that all this searching has been for, all these long years? What does it boil down to, finally?

Perfect. Trap set. Do you think the mind is ever going to let that problem be solved? If it does, then it’s reached the end of its usefulness. If it can solve the bottom line problem for you – the one problem beyond all problems – then it is out of things to do. Therefore, it will not let you answer that question.

The mind has a very simple solution for not letting you answer that question: it goes back to the beginning. Why have you never noticed this elementary trick? The mind circles around, and asks something you’ve already asked. Most of the time you don’t even notice that you’ve already asked it, and maybe even answered it. I see this all the time in the emails I receive: “I just want to have peace” – why? – “So I can be happy” – why? – “So I can have peace” – and the writer doesn’t even notice he’s back to where he started.

The mind is performing this trick to give itself something to do. The lack is not real; it’s something the mind invents. But because you only watch the invention, and not where the invention comes from, you take it as real.  The mind is always up to this. You watch the inventions of the mind – the needs, the desires, and the lack – very, very closely, but you forget to watch the mind. You obsessively monitor every shift and change in the state of need, the state of want, the state of lack, but you totally ignore the state of the mind, which is where all of it originates. If you were to watch it, you would see that the mind is just having fun, at your expense.

You can try to satisfy your lacks, but do you think you will succeed at satisfying all of them? Or will the mind keep creating new ones? Don’t you think the mind is capable of creating one lack after another, knowing that when it runs out, it just reuses ones it’s already used? The mind has figured out that you don’t notice when a problem is recycled – that’s the trick – and so it can just keep the fun going forever.

It’s up to you to notice. Check it out for yourself. Ask, “What do I really want?” and then notice when the answers begin to be recycled. And then, it’s up to you: keep needing recycled needs, keep lacking recycled lacks, or, don’t bother following the mind around in circles anymore, and jump out.

Don’t just read this and imagine what doing the exercise will be like, because you can’t imagine it. There are surprises in the “doing” that defy description and imagination. I’m only writing about it in the hopes that you’ll actually do it. It's not an intellectual exercise.