It's All in Your Head!

You've probably heard this before.  Usually you hear it exactly when you don't need to hear it.

Of course it is all in my head, where else would it be and indeed what place could be more dangerous?  

I wish it wasn't in my head.  I wish it was in a little box that I could hide away in a storage closet or smash with a giant freakin' sledgehammer.  Man, would I like to smash that box.

So its all in my head- what am I supposed to do about it?  Even better, how do I get this damn thing out of my head?

What we are dealing with is the conceptual consciousness that we discussed in the practice of calm abiding. 

Our culture really values the individual expressions of the self.  Facebook, YouTube and Twitter provide a perfect platform so that we can broadcast ourselves to the world, sharing every amazing thought and story with all of our friends, family and strangers.  As much as we fixate on our own thoughts, opinions and ideals; we are not our thoughts, opinions and ideals.  These are simply projections of our self into the world around us and they constitute bondage whether we are riding a euphoric high or stuck in that damn box. 

Our thoughts do have value, we can use rational analysis and investigation to come to a correct understanding of reality.  We need to use thoughts and words to share and relate our experience to other people and share knowledge.  But thoughts have a limit, what we are trying to discover in the practice of calm abiding is beyond speech, thought or expression.

So we need to loosen our fixation to this aspect of our minds.  Thoughts will continue to arise, but they become like the tracks of a bird flying through the sky, clearly apparent but vanishing without a trace. 

The only way we are going to arrive at this state is to learn to rest in the natural state- the vast, open expanse of limpid clarity that is beyond speech, thought or expression- your fundamental ground.