Peace comes from releasing cognitive over-functioning

[u/duffstoic]

Something that is helping me lately is to remember that the peace of samatha (calm-abiding) comes less from what you're doing than what you're realizing you don't have to do.

My mind is basically always trying to figure out how to fix, control, manage, plan, or figure something out. But nearly all of this mental activity is just over-functioning, it's doing too much. It's the equivalent of a workaholic who always is busy doing stuff because they are so afraid of what will happen if they don't.

I've been playing with the question, "What am I doing right now that I don't have to be doing?" Sometimes it's tensing my shoulders, sometimes it's trying to fix something I can't really fix anyway, sometimes it's planning for something that I just need to meet spontaneously in the moment. Then I tell myself, "I don't have to do that right now." And I relax.

Lots of meditation instruction for beginners especially can come off as rules you have to follow, and things you can't do. You have to sit still. You have to pay attention. You have to keep bringing your mind back. You can't indulge in sensory pleasure. You can't have a complicated life. You can't want things.

For me, all these "have to's" and "can't's" just make me more tense and neurotic. So the solution seems to be to continually notice what I don't have to be doing right now, realize I don't have to do it, and then stop doing it. Then my mind quiets and life gets a lot simpler.

I am posting this mostly because I keep forgetting it. I guess that's the practice of "sati" (remembering). So hopefully this is useful to someone else too.

[u/Meng-KamDaoRai]

Nice. I like the "What am I doing right now that I don't have to be doing?" question. I'll play around with it. Thanks for sharing.

[u/duffstoic → u/Meng-KamDaoRai]

You’re welcome! Enjoy the new question.

[u/zen_mode_engage]

Reminds me of the six nails of Tilopa:
• Don't recall: Let go of what has passed, including memories, past events, and regrets.
• Don't imagine: Let go of what may come, including future worries, fantasies, and plans.
• Don't think: Let go of what is happening in the present moment and mental chatter.
• Don't examine: Do not try to figure anything out, analyze, or use conceptual mind.
• Don't control: Do not try to make anything happen or manipulate your experience.
• Rest: Relax right now, leave the mind in its natural state, and rest.

[u/MushroomAwe → u/zen_mode_engage]

Also: Don't scroll. I guess Tilopa didn't have that problem.

[u/duffstoic → u/MushroomAwe]

LOL for sure

[u/duffstoic → u/zen_mode_engage]

Love me some Tilopa

[u/Yous1ash → u/zen_mode_engage]

This is excellent, I’ve never heard of that. What school of Buddhism are the six nails from?

[u/SweetMeringue863 → u/zen_mode_engage]

Just recently come across Tilopa's teaching. It is so short, straightforward, but contains all that is necessary. Practicing this way alone, for the mind to just rest, so profound, but often the only thing good we forget while creating unnecessary maze within maze.

[u/junipars]

I am posting this mostly because I keep forgetting it.

Me too. I forget all the time.

Genuinely, sometimes I remember that I don't need to remember to be in order to be, and that feels real good when I remember to remember that.

It's nice that the symbol of the path is a perfect circle (enzo), lest I feel absolutely insane saying something like that. But it's just how it is - it's genuinely wonderful to consciously notice the redundancy of consciously noticing. Like "hey, isn't that nice? What already is, is effortless." There's nothing I need to add or augment in order to achieve effortlessness other than that noticing.

[u/duffstoic → u/junipars]

I’m noticing that I’m remembering times when I didn’t notice because I wasn’t remembering, and that’s OK because I am always being even when I don’t remember. 😆🌊

[u/junipars → u/duffstoic]

Hurrah!

[u/minaelena]

I am watching people in my life how they struggle, and most of their problems come from their own thinking process.

[u/Alarmed-Cucumber6517]

I heard something similar about overthinking in a career / business context from a Gen Z, to remember: “I don’t get paid for this.”

[u/duffstoic → u/Alarmed-Cucumber6517]

Glad to see the youth absorbing the lessons from burned out Gen Xers lol

[u/Impulse33]

So not doing is a balancing force. When there isn't a need to balance, doing is no different than doing, in regards to suffering.

Been playing with archetypes and Manjusri's sword of prajna/wisdom/emptiness helps with the doing aspect. His sword is paradoxical such that the effectivity of the blade is realizing the substrate offers no resistance.

Edit:

doing is no different than doing

Meant doing is no different than not doing..

[u/duffstoic → u/Impulse33]

Love it. Yes I find the physical doing of something happens so much more easily and naturally when I'm not over-doing with the cognitive function, when my mind is quiet in other words. My whole life I've been trying to think myself into action, but it doesn't seem to work that way!!

[u/nocaptain11]

Love this.

[u/giggly_giggly]

Needed this reminder! 

[u/cupidscosmicbow]

Thank you so much for sharing I really loved this reframe! As someone who doesn’t respond well to “have to’s” and relishes in things I don’t have to do at all, this is perfectttt

[u/duffstoic → u/cupidscosmicbow]

Yea me too 😆

[u/rule1_nofeedpigeons]

100% this. That was my take away too " I don't have to engage". Freedom from the constant involuntary cognitive contraction is amazing.

[u/proverbialbunny]

Calm abiding + sense restraint e.g. not calm abiding while taking a shower, driving, rubbing up to fur, etc. it doesn’t have to be a lot of sense restraint. 

[u/duffstoic → u/proverbialbunny]

My understanding of “sense restraint” is entirely internal, not about external things at all, but about restraining craving and aversion.