Thoughts on Thought

Don't believe everything you think!!!

"Thought creates the world and then says, 'I didn't do it!'" (David Bohm, physicist)

Thought is limited.

Attention is unlimited.

David Bohm, a physicist, in his books On Dialogue, and Thought as a System, examines the role of thought in our lives. Often thought takes on a life of its own, especially in the middle of the night. Thought is full of worry, regret, and fear. It creates inequality, racism, classism, ableism, sexism, and every other imaginable difference. It is the cause of hatred, domination, oppression, power, control, violence, and war. 

Thought creates boundaries and nations but then acts like it didn't do anything, like nations have always been there. 

Thought creates all these things. Thought also is the source of our actions. But then once we take the actions that we take, we wonder why these things have the kind of result that they have. We can't see that the source of the problems (thought) is the same thing that created the problem; thought.

Sit quietly and pay attention to your thoughts. Notice them. Count them. When you have a thought about the past, hold up a finger on your left hand. When you have a thought about the future, hold up a finger on your right hand. After a few minutes, notice that none of your thoughts are in the present moment. They are all caught in the past and future, regrets and worries, broken promises and failures, and also successes and joys. But never are they helping us be fully present, now. And that's all we have, NOW. So what good is thought if all it seems to be is a distraction from here and now?

Thought's primary purpose in our lives is to solve problems. We will always need that. But if it does not have problems to fix, then thought creates problems. It then keeps you awake at night trying to solve the problems that it created. Where do you think your worst nightmares come from? Or on a more subtle note, from whence do these things come: fear, worry, regret, failure, hatred, self-degradation, and on and on???

That's why Bohm's friend, neighbor, and coworker, Albert Einstein, said this:

"We cannot solve the problems that we created with the same thinking with which we created them."

There is a worldwide breakdown in communication. Why is it that we cannot communicate? No one listens. No one hears the other. Everyone is all wrapped up in their own thinking about this idea or that cause, this opinion or that belief. There is no understanding between people. We are too busy trying to be right. And in order to be right, we must make those with whom we disagree wrong. The busyness of being right and making wrong has destroyed communication. It has destroyed the ability to trust each other and to build relationships. Human beings, at the deepest level, are all connected. Human beings, at the deepest level, want to be seen for who they are. We all simply want to be heard. We are all the same. But thought creates the "other", a lie that we are different or that we are right or that they are wrong, that we then believe.

The greatest tragedy of our times is that in a time of unprecedented communication technology, we can no longer communicate with each other. Because of our egos, fears, and beliefs, we cannot even look at each other and “see” the person; all that we have in common, that we are one. All we see is our own thoughts about disagreements and differences, right and wrong.

That which is different, we don’t understand.

That which we don’t understand, we fear.

That which we fear, we kill.

We kill people in many other ways
than through war and murder.

We kill people with a look
of disregard or disgust.

We kill people by looking
down on them.

We kill people with words
that pierce to the heart.

We use any means possible to remove that which is different, that with which we disagree; because it makes us uncomfortable. We even judge them and send them to hell in our own minds. All because of our own fear of difference.

I repeat, “Thought creates the world and then says, ‘I didn’t do it’” (David Bohm). Thought is a tricky thing, a sly fox. Somehow it is able to mask the lies so that we don’t see their source.

We could say, "The self creates thought." But because of thought being such a trickster and because of the illusariness of thought, perhaps it would be more accurate to say, "Thought creates the self." Or "Thought creates our reality."

What if we learned to pay attention to our thoughts? They are the source of our emotions; our happiness, our fears, our regrets, our abundance, our scarcity, our hate, our love. Thought creates our world. But we can’t see it… because we don’t pay attention. We are not awake. We are not conscious.

"Loving people live in a loving world.
Hostile people live in a hostile world.
Same world." (Wayne Dyer)

We allow our thoughts to run away with our lives, our relationships, our happiness, our love.
Training the mind is key.

We must first step back and follow our thoughts. When we do, we realize we have a “monkey mind” with thought running back and forth between the past and the future; the very things that we have no control over. Regrets of the past, worries and fears of the future occupy our mind all the time.

We must learn to use thought in ways that are coherent rather than incoherent and fragmented. Coherent thought is simply thinking that leads to actions that actually give us the result that we want or need.

It takes inner work to develop the practice of the proprioception of thought, perceiving our thoughts, or metacognition at a very basic level.

Cognition about our cognition.

Thinking about our thinking.

Perceiving our perceptions.

Paying attention to our attention.

The basic or ancient function of thought is for survival. It is to solve problems of getting food when we are hungry, shelter with we are cold, or fixing things that are broken.

But thought takes on a life of its own when it is idle and we allow it to become a god that is solving the great mysteries of humankind or the universe. We think that we can understand that which is not understandable. We gotta put our god in a box so we “know” what we are dealing with. We have to explain away the problem of evil so that we can “think” we “know”. But when we try to solve or fix that which is beyond our understanding, our thoughts run rampant. Then when we can’t get anywhere, we systematize an answer through philosophy, religion, theology, or politics (stories in our heads) so that we can put it in a box and understand it.

We must train our minds to quiet our thinking so that we can pay attention.

Thought comes from a place of busyness and noise; resulting in worry and fear, regret and discontent. Thought comes from past memories.

Attention comes from a center of silence, presence, stillness, awareness, consciousness; resulting in gratitude, contentment, and peace.

… leaving us standing in wonder of the great mysteries of life.

There are many ways of developing a quiet mind and a peaceful heart.

I have used the silent worship of the Quakers to wait without expectation and listen to the silence for the still small voice. I have also used mindfulness practice; a form of meditation. Meditative walking is another way for me.

Contemplative prayer, silent retreats (even at home), or walking in nature are all ways people use to learn to be present.

Learning to pay attention and be fully present is pretty important because this present moment is all we have.

"We could say that practically all the problems of the human race are due to the fact that thought is not proprioceptive.... You don't decide what to do with the info. Thought runs you. Thought, however, gives false info that you are running it, that you are the one who controls thought. Whereas actually thought is the one who controls each one of us."
(David Bohm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddngc3nhs_I)

“Bohm raises doubts as to whether any form of thought can apprehend what he refers to as the 'unlimited'. As the very nature of thought is to select limited abstractions from the world, it can never really approach the ‘ground of our being’ – that which is unlimited. Yet at the same time, human beings have an intrinsic need to understand and relate to the ‘cosmic dimension’ of existence. To address this apparent disjuncture in our experience, Bohm proposes that attention, unlike thought, is potentially unrestricted, and therefore capable of apprehending the subtle nature of the ‘unlimited’.” (Lee Nichol in the foreword of David Bohm's book, On Dialogue)

For more:
The Limitations of Thought (David Bohm)

Click here for Bohm on Krishnamurti's views on thought, conditioning, and the self.