You Are Not Your Thoughts
Ego. Judgment. Presence. Because of the way they’re thrown around colloquially and due to society’s deprioritization of mindful introspection, we meet a lot of people that aren’t fully aware of what we mean when we use these words. So we’re going to do a little clarification and exploration of terms!
If you want to understand, it all begins with our exercise of metacognition. Metacognition is simply thinking about the way you’re thinking. But this is a bit tricky, since most of us are stuck in a state of identification with thought.
Whether we know better or not, there’s a natural gravitation toward: “this voice in my head is me.” We become attached to it, its contents, and the stories it weaves out of a biologically baked-in comparative process.
It’s no surprise! From the moment we’re born, people are wondering, “Who will you grow up to be?” every new face asking, “Who are you?” rapidly influencing us toward the same line of thinking: “Maybe I’m this kind of person. Maybe I’m that kind of person. Oh, that’s “those” people. Oh, you’re “THAT kind” of person.”
Whatever the answer, that noisy voice and the qualities its takes on are perceived as “you.” People compare your “you” to other “you’s,” and you in turn compare yourself to others, trying to navigate a very complicated world with fast acting reductions. In reality, these are all products of environmental conditioning, filtered through your genetically unique mental machinery. People over complicate it, but it’s simple; if you grew up without language, that inner monologue simply wouldn’t exist.
That “you” that you and your environment take part in constructing (and this goes beyond language, including all preferences, opinions, memories—your entire learned identity and sense of personhood) is known as ego.
Meditation is the fast track to observing this process, and metacognition is our means of tailoring it. If you watch the breath, giving it as much of your attention as possible, that voice (a part of ego) will quickly insert itself. “What is the point of this? This is silly. What kind of people meditate anyway? Hippies. It’s probably all hoopla. I want Cheese Its.”
Pay close attention though, and you’ll realize you’re not actually the agent behind those thoughts. They spring into your awareness spontaneously, whether you like it or not. Most of them are ugly thoughts you’d rather not even think.
Interestingly, we don’t usually identify with the ugly ones. We identify with those that paint a likable picture of ourselves, those that make us feel important and unique, or those that enable us in some way. But the reality is: YOU are NOT your THOUGHTS. If YOU are anything, you’re more likely the OBSERVER of those thoughts.
Resting as the observer, you’ll quickly see it’s super duper difficult to quiet the mind. With nearly everything that enters your awareness, you’re saying to yourself: OooOoo, I like that. Oh gawd, that’s annoying. I wish this were different. I want this instead. If only they did this, or were this way. This is like that. That isn’t like this. And on and on and on.
If you say you don’t judge people, you’re likely just not paying attention. As a matter of our neurologically indisputable comparative process which allows us to interface with the world and avoid dying, you can ONLY either be unaware, lying about it, lying to yourself, or are merely referring to a few particular forms of judgment in a select few circumstances.
There is but ONE space in which ego and judgement are not, and THAT is the PRESENT. This too is tricky, however, because presence rests on a continuum from “so lost in thought I have no idea what’s going on around me,” to, “formless, non-conceptual, undifferentiated, raw sensory data in which the world literally looks completely different and strange, universal, paradigmatic epiphanies seem to spring into awareness in place of egoic thought.”
…Catch yourself judging that statement yet? Might be a sign you ought to meditate and see for yourself!
More than any other academic nomenclature might be, this terminology is extremely important. Having the right words to put to these realities means the difference between self-deception and self-awareness. It enables selflessness over selfishness, frames better markers for contentment via the present, and allows us to craft an ego (our necessary evil for survival as humans) that can let go when it needs to and love in spite of the noise.
