The Pictures in Our Minds

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about pictures.

Not photographs exactly, although in some ways they are very much like photographs.

Our minds are constantly taking pictures of our lives.

Something happens, and we take a picture.

Someone says something that hurts us, and we take a picture.

We have an experience of being successful—or failing—and take a picture.

We learn something about ourselves:

I'm shy.

I'm difficult.

I'm not creative.

I'm the responsible one.

I'm bad with money.

I'm too much.

I'm not enough.

Picture.

Picture.

Picture.

Over the years, we collect thousands of them.

And eventually, we can forget that they are pictures.

We start believing they are us.

The pictures we carry

This is the idea behind my children's book, The Pictures in My Mind.

I wrote it to help children understand something I've come to think is just as important for adults:

We are not everything that passes through our minds.

Our minds make pictures all day long.

Some are silly.

Some are loud.

Some are scary.

Some are wonderful.

Some are old.

Some are stories about the past.

Some are predictions about the future.

And sometimes we get so caught in one of them that we forget we're looking at a picture at all.

We're suddenly in the story.

Someone doesn't return our text, and the mind creates a picture about what it means.

We make a mistake, and suddenly we're looking at a picture of ourselves as a failure.

We think about something that happened ten years ago, and for a moment our body responds as though it's happening now.

The picture can be incredibly convincing.

But it is still a picture.

The one who sees the picture

There's a line in my book that feels increasingly important to me:

Those pictures are not really you.You're the one who sees it all.

When I wrote those words for children, I was thinking about the difference between a thought and the person having the thought.

Now I think about it in an even deeper way.

If I can see a thought, then there must be something in me that is seeing the thought.

If I can notice that I'm worried, I'm not only the worry.

If I can notice that I'm angry, I'm not only the anger.

If I can notice that I'm telling myself a story, I'm not completely inside the story.

There is a watcher.

There is awareness.

There is something underneath all of those pictures.

And this is where my understanding of Maum Meditation has begun to connect with the idea in the book.

Subtraction

Maum uses a word I find particularly interesting:

subtraction.

We're so accustomed to thinking about growth as adding something.

Learn something.

Understand something.

Change something.

Improve yourself.

Replace a negative thought with a positive thought.

Become a better version of yourself.

But what if we don't need to keep adding?

What if some of what we're looking for is underneath what we've accumulated?

Maum describes the mind as filled with the pictures we've collected throughout our lives—memories, experiences, beliefs, thoughts, identities, and stories.

This is sometimes called the false mind.

Not "false" because every memory is factually wrong or every thought is meaningless.

False in the sense that these accumulated pictures are not the whole of who we are.

We have mistaken the pictures for reality.

And perhaps we've mistaken them for ourselves.

So instead of trying to fix every picture, Maum offers another possibility:

Let it go.

Subtract it.

Let the picture disappear

One of the practices in Maum is to imagine placing these pictures into a disappearing sun.

You might bring to mind something you're carrying.

A memory.

A fear.

A resentment.

An old belief about yourself.

A story you've told yourself for years.

And rather than analyzing it, arguing with it, or trying to turn it into something more positive, you imagine letting it disappear.

There is a prayer that accompanies the practice:

"Please make it disappear. Please, Truth, make the false disappear."

I find something very different in that than the usual advice to "change your thinking."

There is no demand that I figure everything out.

No demand that I understand why the picture is there.

No demand that I convince myself that everything is okay.

Instead, there is a willingness to say:

I don't need to carry this anymore.

And then to let it go.

What if we don't replace it?

This is the part I find especially interesting.

What happens when we subtract a picture and don't immediately replace it?

If the picture says:

I'm not good enough.

we don't necessarily have to replace it with:

I am amazing.

We can simply let the first picture disappear.

And then wait.

If the picture says:

Something terrible is going to happen.

we don't necessarily have to force ourselves to think:

Everything is going to be wonderful.

We can let the picture go.

And wait.

What is there when we aren't busy creating another picture?

This is where the idea of True Mind, or Universe Mind, enters the Maum practice.

The idea isn't that we have to create peace.

It is that beneath all the accumulated pictures, there is something that is already peaceful.

Something whole.

Something free.

Something connected to Truth.

The quiet place behind the picture show

In my book, I describe that place this way:

Back behind the picture show,There's a space that starts to glow.Wide and calm, still and deep,Like the sky when the wind's asleep.

I love that image because it doesn't require us to make the mind stop.

The pictures can still appear.

We don't have to chase them away.

We simply begin to notice that there is something behind them.

There is the picture.

There is the watcher.

And then there is the quiet.

Picture… Watcher… Quiet hush.

I think this may be one of the most important things we can learn—not just as children, but as adults.

We can have a thought without becoming the thought.

We can have a feeling without becoming the feeling.

We can remember something without having to live inside the memory.

We can notice a story without automatically believing it.

And sometimes, we can let the whole thing go.

Maybe we don't have to believe every picture

Think about how many pictures you've accumulated about yourself.

Maybe you're looking at one right now.

Maybe there's a picture that says you're behind.

Or that you've wasted time.

Or that you're too old.

Or that you should be further along.

Or that you're not creative enough.

Or that you need to keep everyone happy.

Or that you have to work harder.

Or that something about you needs to be fixed before you can really live your life.

What if you simply looked at it?

Not argued with it.

Not believed it.

Not rejected it.

Just noticed:

Oh. That's a picture I've been carrying.

And then imagine placing it in the disappearing sun.

Please make it disappear.

What happens if you don't replace it with another story?

What happens if you leave a little space?

A practice I'm returning to

This is something I'm personally drawn to in both the book and the Maum practice.

When I notice that I'm caught in a thought, I can pause.

I can say:

There's a picture.

I can watch it.

And then I can ask:

Do I need to keep carrying this?

If the answer is no, I can imagine letting it disappear.

Sometimes I use the image of the disappearing sun.

Sometimes I simply picture the thought becoming smaller and smaller until it disappears.

And sometimes I pray:

Please make it disappear. Please, Truth, make the false disappear.

Then I try not to rush in and fill the space.

I just stay there for a moment.

The goal isn't to have an empty mind

I don't think this practice is about getting rid of thoughts.

Our minds make pictures.

That's what minds do.

There will always be another thought, another memory, another idea, another story.

The freedom comes from something subtler.

We don't have to follow every picture.

We don't have to believe every picture.

And we don't have to carry every picture with us.

We can watch.

We can let go.

We can return.

Again and again.

Picture.

Watcher.

Quiet.

What might be left?

This is the question I'm most interested in.

What is left when we begin subtracting?

Not when we improve ourselves.

Not when we become more productive.

Not when we finally figure everything out.

But when we let some of the accumulated pictures disappear.

What is left when the old story about who I am becomes a little quieter?

What is left when I don't have to defend my past?

What is left when I stop rehearsing the future?

What is left when I don't have to prove that my thoughts are right?

Maybe this is where the spiritual part of the practice becomes important.

For me, meditation can feel less like a technique and more like a form of prayer—a way of turning toward God, Truth, or whatever word we use for that which is greater than the limited story of ourselves.

Not asking to become someone else.

Asking for help in letting go of what isn't true.

And then listening.

Coming back to what was already here

There's a line near the end of The Pictures in My Mind:

That peaceful place won't disappear,It's always with you, always near.

I wrote that for a child.

But I think I needed to hear it too.

Maybe the quiet place doesn't disappear when the mind gets busy.

Maybe it doesn't disappear when we're afraid.

Maybe it doesn't disappear when we're caught in a story.

Maybe we've simply covered it with pictures.

And if that's true, then perhaps the work isn't to find our way to some new, improved version of ourselves.

Perhaps the work is to subtract.

To let go.

To become a little less attached to the pictures we've collected.

To remember that the picture isn't the whole story.

And that the person who sees the picture is still here.

Quietly watching.

Waiting.

Already whole.

Sometimes, the next step isn't to figure out what to think.

It's simply to let the picture disappear.

And rest for a moment in what remains.