When given the opportunity to witness my mind for ten days straight, I discovered it is hilarious, endlessly repetitive, yet incredibly entertaining.
Thoughts spin and circle, jostling for attention. Some shout, some hide, some leap out when least expected. I realized how much I love my little brain. She is mischievous, clever, endlessly curious, always ready to play. Beneath the laughter and loops, I began to sense shadows and lights visiting, a kaleidoscope of unseen energies shaping the world in ways we rarely can perceive.
In my teen years, when I was anorexic, I was in constant conversation with my inner critic. She took center stage. I had already succeeded in telling her to take a back seat so I could get on with my life and stop being held hostage. Still, in my first retreat, I became aware of a little nagging voice that made fun of others, judged them, picked on them.
“Oh, you think you’re cool with your blanket there? Nice socks.”
The vibration of this voice was yuck. It did not make me feel good, so I decided to address it directly.
“Hey you, the one picking on everyone. What is your deal? Why are you always picking on people?”
And that’s when my mind surprised me with its genius. It created a pickle in my brain, a cartoon pickle on legs. I suddenly realized this same pickle had been picking on me. my whole life. And I had been taking it seriously.
I was suffering because of an imaginary pickle?
“You are just a pickle! Why are you picking on people, pickle?”
I burst out laughing. How could I ever take them seriously again? They were a pickle. That was the day I stopped listening.
In another retreat, I found my inner DJ, the part of my mind that constantly cues up songs before and after events. God, I love them. Here is how I found them.
I was sitting on the lawn during lunch. We all sat alone, silent with our tofu and hippie slop, which I adore, no shade. Then a truck pulled up to service the portapotties. How entertaining! We do not get much excitement at Vipassana, so I was leaning in, fascinated by anything that was not the workings of my mind. The portapotties were called Honey Pots, and that name always makes me giggle.
During the next hour long meditation, my inner DJ started playing “Stir It Up” by Bob Marley. I laughed out loud in the hall. It was so nasty and funny. The Honey Pots had literally just been stirred up. Ever since, I have paid close attention to my inner DJ to see what they are trying to tell me. I adore them. They never let me down.
In another retreat, I carried around an old hurt like it was a precious package. Every time I sat, there it was again, the feeling of betrayal, not from a lover but from a friend. It felt like a scab I could not stop picking, raw and insistent.
For days I sat with it, this small cruel thing that lived under my ribs. I kept thinking I was healing it, but really I was feeding it, keeping it alive. Then one afternoon, in the quiet pulse of the meditation hall, I saw it clearly. I was the one keeping this pain alive. My friend was not feeling any of this. Only I was. I was the one twisting the knife by holding on.
When I finally let it go, it was not an idea. It was a body shift. My shoulders softened. My breath deepened. Something heavy unclenched inside me. The proof was in the pudding, peace not as a concept but as sensation. My happiness mattered more than being right, more than rehearsing the old wound one more time.
That lesson has never left me. It lives in my body. Old stories do not punish those who wronged me. They punish only me. Justice is not found in reliving the past, only in letting it rest.
Another moment of insight came from an obsession with an old lover. He kept circling my brain, popping in all the time like an uninvited guest. I was done with him, so why was he insisting on taking up space in my precious mind? After a few days, he became a fly, and I became the flyswatter. I could almost feel the tiny buzzing in my skull, the way it landed and darted, and then the satisfying swat that sent it flying. It sounds cruel, but that was exactly what I needed to do to clear that distraction from my head. We are the best of friends now, which is a small miracle. Now, when an unwanted thought circles, I take out the flyswatter. It works nearly every time.
Vipassana taught me that the mind is not an enemy to conquer but a companion to observe and play with. Sure, this companion is a bit obsessive, but she is endlessly imaginative, full of surprises, mischief, and wisdom if I only pause long enough to notice.
Every thoughtform, even the strange or frightening ones, is just a visitor passing through. Some arrive as teachers, some as comedians, some as ghosts, angels, or demons. Each seeks our attention, asking to be seen, acknowledged, and honored. As Rumi reminds us in The Guest House, welcome them all, even if they are a crowd of sorrows, for each has been sent as a guide from beyond. (I spent a year exploring this poem with a First Grade class, exploring the mystery of how the heart “gets feelings.” I hope to post it in Wonderstanding.)
Beyond. Beyond my mind, the world hums with its own unseen currents, strange, terrifying, and tender. This I know.
With each moment of practice, I fall a little more in love with the living landscape of my mind and the vast, unknowable mysteries that stretch beyond it.
Do you have any connections? I would love to hear them!