A. Sit comfortably and let thoughts arise in the mind. Instead of depending on the content of the thoughts for knowledge of what is happening, let yourself [be] in the activity of thinking. At this level, there is no need to report back on what is thought or to craft the content of thoughts into new and ongoing stories. Just stay with the thinking of each thought.
As you grow accustomed to looking with this attitude, you will find that thoughts calm down. The thinking mind is no longer obligated to construct a reality, and thoughts are no longer structured by the need to arrive at a specified destination. Thought residues seem less solid, their power less strong.
B. To deepen the quality evoked in the first part of this exercise, practice seeing without relying on the eyes. In interacting with others, practice understanding what is being said without relying on the words. The models that govern ordinary knowledge are conducted by thoughts. As thoughts stream through our minds, we sort them in various ways. Some thoughts are available as tools. Others take over our awareness completely, so that we fall into the world that they create.
When thoughts invite us to step into their world, losing ourselves as we would lose ourselves in a dream, why are we so eager to accept the invitation? Perhaps it is because we have no more encompassing knowledge available. Confronted with this lack, we rely on thoughts--even 'idle' thoughts and daydreams--as carriers of knowledge. Thoughts allow us to characterize what appears and standardize the knowable. What has been thought can be quoted, predicted, repeated, and made use of in accord with our wishes.
Having learned to rely on thoughts in this way, we have also learned to accept ongoing anxiety. Thoughts must succeed one another in sequence, like the beads on a necklace. The moment one bead does not follow the next, the necklace will break; beads will clatter to the floor and roll away, and our life will collapse into chaos.
Exercise 2 challenges that structure. It invites you to focus on thoughts as temporal events independent of their content. It is based on the premise that we can afford to let go of our dependence on thoughts; that a different way of knowing is available. Without some willingness to engage this possibility directly, the exercise will probably not prove fruitful.
If knowledge is differently available, thoughts do not have to take on the task of constructing the known. We are free to experience thoughts as events unfolding in time. Once we can specify the time of thinking in thinking, thinking offers its own feedback. It constructs and conducts in a way that is more truly transitional and less bound to the structure of substance.
As we let go of the concern for continuity from one thought to the next, we can also abandon our ongoing commitment to narration and linear temporality. We can move into greater intimacy with what is presented, touching what is actual in the experience of thinking and making direct contact with awareness.
In intimacy, lines of communication form. We are not confined to linear or circular structures, but can return to the multidimensionality of appearance. Feedback invites a new sense of the whole.
When thoughts unfold from one to the next, inviting us to
lose ourselves in the endless progression of their content, the
world becomes linear. But in the time of thinking, other dimensions
are available. There is the arising of the thought, the activity
of thinking, the transition between thoughts, the one who is
thinking. The depth of these added dimensions can become a doorway
into an unexpected realm. A simple question may open the door:
What is 'inside' the string of beads? Can we 'go' there? (pp.
250-2, Dynamics of Time and Space)
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