Meditation this morning. I was distracted by ideas for a project. This was an interesting train of thought that insisted on running even though I kept going back to focus on breathing. I kept telling myself that only being in the present moment was real. Thoughts, ideas, fantasies are all mental constructions and their only reality is their effect on me. Similarly philosophies, theologies, myths, stories and poems – all are similar constructions and their only reality is the effect they have on people’s minds. They are what Popper called World 3 material.
What is the difference between consciousness of the physical reality of body, of breathing and awareness of self so conscious, and consciousness of a train of thought, or fantasies and feelings and emotions? In the second there is certainly less self-awareness. The I is caught up in the subjective experience and is not reflexive. The second is constantly varying, interacting with and being influenced by moods and feelings. The experience can be exhilarating, exciting and moving. But unless these inner dialogues, thoughts, or fantasies are recorded so that they become available to others and so enter Popper’s Third World, they remain as insubstantial as a bubble of foam.
The former, however, does not vary. One of the major difficulties of remaining in it is its unrelieved monotony. The mind seems to abhor monotony as nature does a vacuum. Yet, when one holds to it there is acute awareness of the I, the observer of the me of experience. The I is aware of the breathing, of the body’s posture, of external sounds and of the onset of thoughts and fantasies. The I feels it belongs in the trains of thought and in the imagination. This is its natural habitat, where it longs to be, and to be confined to mere observation is only tolerable for short periods of time. When the I resists being drawn into this subjective mode it sees the thoughts and fantasies for what they are, disconnected ephemera, like dandelion seeds blown in the wind. It is only through prolonged observation that the I comes to perceive that the gap between the observer and the observed is as ‘unreal’ as the thoughts and fantasies, that all is one, but this is not a datum of everyday experience.