In front of you sits a solid wood table.
It is sturdy, solid, and plain. Nothing is on the table.
As you watch this table, objects began appearing on it; clocks, pencils, textbooks stacked chest high…
For days you stare at this table. Objects come and go.
Some days the table is entirely bare, almost.
On other days the table is clothed with so many items that you cannot see but a fragment of the dark wood underneath.
Days turn to weeks, weeks to months, months to years.
Over time you forget there was a table underneath and begin to associate the items covering it as part of one whole unit.
You begin to see the objects and the table as being inseparable, forgetting you can remove them.
Let your mind become wide open now to new ideas
The Mind
The human mind is the cluttered table.
The table itself is the underlying consciousness. The objects of consciousness vary in emotion, depth, and content. Some are fleeting, hardly there for more than a moment. Others are intense, long-lasting, and overpowering, encompassing large amounts of your awareness and feeling. Some, like the sense of self, act as tablecloths draped across the table, hiding the true nature.
We forget that there is an underlying consciousness to all of these thoughts we have.
Our whole lives have been spent as this thing, and just as the person in the story begins to see the table and objects as inseparable, we too forget that we are separate from our thoughts.
What then?
Lift the veil
It is in the quiet we often find ourselves bombarded by thought. Ask most people to meditate and they will say “Meditation isn’t for me. I just can’t sit still. It drives me nuts and my thoughts won’t stop.”
If I were healthy but told you I couldn’t do the most basic of daily activities without being sore and fatigued, you would tell me to exercise more, eat better, and rest. At the bottom of this approach is the message that something can be done to remedy this, so you ought to do it. Why doesn’t this same approach go for the racing thoughts of the mind? It is the nature of the mind to ramble, to run. When you meditate, and you observe it, you detach yourself from the race, even for mere moments.
By saying that you cannot sit still, you prove the very point you sought to debunk. It is not further thinking and distraction that is needed, but rather the quiet still moments must be practiced to see that the true nature of the mind is not the objects of consciousness, but the underlying being itself.
In other words, if you wish to see the table from the objects, you must look closely, and the way to do this is through careful consideration of your mind, conscious attention, and quiet moments of observation.
something can be done to remedy this, so you ought to do it.
TCO
When it doesn’t work
There are times when it is difficult to connect to that table. There is so much piled upon it that nothing can be seen of the underlying structure. In these times, one can remember that by simply knowing that there is an underlying table, you can, with this faith, begin removing things from the top until you see it once again.
How do you do this? Conscious detachment from the thoughts
Remind yourself, these are thoughts that arise. They arise often from nowhere. We don’t need to attach meaning to every thought. When we observe, we allow, and when we allow, thoughts pass back to the ether from whence they came, never staying on our table for long. With enough practice, we can release objects that have been laid on our table for a long long time. Slowly but surely, we can lift the veil and see ourselves for that underlying calm, study thing… the solid wood table.
Disclaimer
The mind is more complex than described above. This does not fully do justice to the nature of the mind, but I find it serves as a method that can help bring peace and calm moments into someone’s life when they apply this and believe in it.
As with many things, they may not be entirely true, but this doesn’t mean they don’t work for the intended purpose.
With that being said, take this story with a grain of salt. It is meant to help.
Enjoy your day, memento mori and amor fati.
Cheers