The river and the 99%

99% of what we and you think about is unnecessary to think about.

Thinking about thought. That's a curious thing to do.

You have your daily thought stream (river), that you really have no control over. It's like a noisy, yet entertaining TV without an off switch.

And then you have some subtle, intangible aspect of you that can think about that river—agree with it, disagree with it, react to it and so on.

The river could contain negative judgments about another human being.

Then some part of you latches on to the thought, believes it, and gives it life. Now you could get angry, could behave in a certain way and so on.

Memories of the past arise and there we go reminiscing, thinking about the thoughts. Getting sad perhaps, missing, regretting, beating yourself up.

Same with the future. Getting excited, anxious and the like.

99% of people are not conscious of this. Life is lived completely in the head—identified with the river—instead of in thoughtless, effortless phenomenological relationship to the present moment, to the now.

After awhile this gets exhausting because thinking about thought is a subtle form of effort and requires a form of energy. All the noise gets to be too much.

And if you disagree that most of what you think about is not noise, ask yourself whether or not you can remember the majority of what the river contained yesterday.

What's unimportant doesn't stick.

Most of meditation is a practice of somehow stepping back or disconnecting from the river, there's nothing too mystical to it.

In order to make your life easier. More enjoyable. Less stressful.

To connect you to the present moment.

It takes practice.

What helps the practice is knowing that the river contains mostly unimportant information.

(Notice how the external world reflects this, look at all the useless information consumed daily via TV, internet, newspapers, magazines, etc.)

Now when the river comes or you are in the beginning stages of getting attached to it, you can stop and take a step back.

And keep doing like this. Just as you would train a muscle.

We're not here to think nearly as much as we do. We're mostly here to be the action.

The present moment always informs us, always gives us the right information.

We just have to have faith enough to trust it.

That's the key.