Challenging Conceptual Dominance
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6:41 To create the possibility of recognizing things unseen, we begin by more clearly noticing what’s there. If we can’t see that our experience is largely made up of concepts, how can we address this condition intelligently or effectively? When something exists as one thing but is perceived to be something else, our ability to interact with it or change it is extremely limited. Yet our experience just seems to be our experience. There’s a reason that people look everywhere except into their own experience when they want to change. They assume their perceptions are simply an accurate reflection of reality, not noticing that there is a difference between what is experienced and what is true. To adjust this mistaken impression, we need to fully perceive and acknowledge the dominating influence that concepts have on our moment-to-moment experience.
6:42 Have you ever tried to stop your thinking for even a minute? Try it now. (Even if you have, try again, and try to keep it up longer than normal.) Sit for a few minutes (set a timer if you like) and stop all thinking of any kind. Keep a vigil on your experience from moment to moment. You may seem to have shut off your thinking, but begin to notice a subtle background kind of thinking, a sort of “talking quietly to yourself.” See if you can shut that off too. Perhaps you notice that your mind continues to work even when you perceive no internal speaking or chatter; see if you can shut that down also. Don’t even form mental images or engage in any other conceptual activity. Can you do this for a few minutes? Try. I’ll wait here while you do.
6:43 Couldn’t do it, could you? If you indeed tried to stop all thinking for several minutes at a time, you experienced an inability to do so. If you didn’t attempt it, then please do. Experiencing this inability is far more valuable than taking my word for it. It won’t become clear, however, unless you attempt it in earnest.
The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece with a difficult violin passage. After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it. Stravinsky said, “I understand that. What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.”
—Thomas Powers
6:44 Why do you think it’s so difficult for us to suspend our thinking? I propose it’s because something needs to happen that can’t occur without constant mental activity. (It might have something to do with the creation and maintenance of a conceptual self and the management of that self in relation to everything perceived, but we’ll look into that possibility later.) What’s important to recognize right now within your own experience is the power and dominance of concepts. The ceaselessness of our thinking is one place we can clearly see the drive to conceptualize.
6:45 Another area where we find conceptual dominance is a place few people would expect. Our culture’s way of holding thought as distinctly separate from emotion sets up the assumption that they are of two completely different natures, or at least that they are independent activities. There is certainly something about a thought that is very different from a feeling, no doubt about it. But there is also something quite similar in how they each arise, and this we overlook. Emotions and thoughts are both produced through mental activity. It’s easy to recognize the conceptual nature of thinking, but we prefer not to acknowledge that emotions—and the many feeling-reactions and impulses too subtle or obscure to be labeled as emotions—also occur within the mind.
6:46 Now, the moment I say that emotions are concepts, I suspect more than one reader will object. Clearly emotions have a charge to them; our feelings have gusto and passion. They aren’t “dry” like intellect, or mere thought. We’re moved by our emotions. It seems as if we’re in charge of our thoughts, but emotions seem to arise without our bidding. If we recall our attempt to stop thinking, however, we might hesitate to conclude so boldly that we indeed control our thinking.
6:47 The activity of thinking appears to be less than completely under our control. Conversely, we must admit that we do have some say in our emotions. We’ve all experienced being a little angrier than was called for—found ourselves actually pumping it up a bit because we liked the effect it was having on ourselves or on others. We might pout or fan the flames of our hurt so as to elicit more sympathy, or perhaps nurture feelings of love even though we perceive that the circumstances don’t really warrant such romantic feelings. So we have to admit, even if only to ourselves, that we influence our emotions also.
6:48 What most of us don’t realize, however, is that the basic nature of all emotions is conceptual. A feeling-reaction occurs as a result of a complex mental stimulus that is conceptual in nature. This is what we experience as an emotion. A fuller explanation of the phenomenon of emotion will emerge as we proceed, but for now I’d like you to take my word for it that emotion is conceptually based. It’s important for you to recognize the full scope of our conceptualizing so that you can see just how dominated we are by it. Usually, the strong influence that our feelings have on us is more readily apparent and acceptable than the fact that we’re dominated by our own thinking.
6:49 It’s not difficult for us to look back and recall the many emotions we’ve had over our lifetime, including those that were painful or undesirable. Even in our more recent past we can count a large number and variety of emotional feelings that have passed through our experience. More difficult perhaps is to be aware of the ever-present activity of feeling-states that pulse through the body and mind as steadily as a heartbeat. If you take a moment to check out your feelings right now, you can probably identify some mood or emotional feeling that occupies your background awareness. Unless you are particularly moved by what you’re reading or your sister has just poured cold water down your shirt, you may not have a clear and “loud” emotional experience at present. But you do have feelings, right now and always.
6:50 Begin to increase sensitivity to your current feeling activity by doing the following exercise:
Put your attention on the sensations and feelings in your body and mind in this moment, and see how many you can identify as not physically produced. In other words, what feelings can you find that aren’t something like an itch on your foot, or a sense of the room temperature? How you feel about the itchy foot or in reaction to the warm room are not in themselves physiological sensations. Perhaps the itching bothers you, or maybe you enjoy scratching it. The warm room might feel cozy and safe to you, or perhaps it’s uncomfortably stuffy. These background reactions may not occur to you as clearly as some emotions, but they are emotional in nature.
Other feelings you have are not even that clear. If you pay close attention, you can begin to pick up more subtle moods and feelings, some of which would normally pass for sensations. Upon inspection, they turn out not to be physically based, but rather subtle emotional reactions to certain background ideas and mind states. You might notice that feeling energized is really an underlying excitement, or discover that the slight discomfort of wearing a tie is actually impatience making you a bit hot under the collar. Feelings like these remain obscured in the background. Either they’re so familiar that we take them for granted, or so subtle or insignificant that we fail to become conscious of them.
See how many feelings and varieties of feeling you can identify just as you sit there. Over time, watch them shift and change. Merely putting your attention on them and increasing your sensitivity will create a marked change in the feelings that you have. Regardless what you do with them, notice that these subtle and not so subtle emotional feelings are a constant activity.
6:51 Having noticed that feelings—various moods and attitudes, reactions and emotions, impulses and urges, dispositions and mind states—are constantly a part of your overall experience, it is time to acknowledge their influence.
Just as you did with your thinking, take a few minutes, perhaps a few more than you did with thinking, and attempt to suspend all feeling of any kind. Stop feeling any emotion or even having an attitude toward anything. This means you must give up all dispositions and judgments because all judgments are emotionally charged. Try to have no impulse, no desires, fears, drives, or urges of any kind. Be completely free of any possible reaction or upset, no matter what may occur. Know that suppressing or ignoring what you feel is not being free of it. Try to remain aware and receptive but without a hint of feeling for several minutes. Do this now.
6:52 Difficult, isn’t it? Actually you’ll find that it is as difficult as suspending your thinking. This is because thinking has an interrelationship with feelings, and vice versa—they evoke and provoke one another. There is a reason for this, which, once again, you’ll look at later. For now, focus on increasing your awareness of the influence that concept has on your experience and perception. If all thinking and all emotional feelings are conceptual in nature, consider how much of your experience is dominated by these activities.
6:53 The task of directly experiencing the real nature of Being requires that we recognize and free ourselves of any and every concept we have—even the subtle and hidden ones—about who we are. This can be as immense and difficult a task as it is a worthy one. In the next chapter we’re going to take this notion of conceptual domination and apply a more grounded look at how it operates in our daily lives. Proceeding in steps and stages, we can begin to uncover and detach ourselves from the dominance and confusion of the conceptual domain and take steps to return our consciousness to a more genuine sense of self.
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The Book of Not Knowing, Chapter Six
Peter Ralston
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