I was lying in bed last night reading after a long day of work, and it occurred to me that it has been around two years since I started this site. So I opened my computer to check the date of the first post of this site and the date is 11-7-12. Today is the two-year anniversary of www.dingtwist.com.
I distinctly remember that night, purchasing the URL dingtwist.com (for an explanation of the choice click here), setting up my hosting account with bluehost, googling all kinds of very basic stuff which is the most common of knowledge to me now, choosing a wordpress theme, and all the minutia that go along with setting up a website. And when it was all set up, I wrote and rewrote and rewrote that first post even though maybe 3 or 4 people have ever read it. When I clicked “Publish” and saw my words there on the internet, I remember it was a pretty cool feeling.
I try to think back to that time in my life but it’s difficult. I was such a different person. Often self-conscious about what I wrote here, sometimes self-conscious in social situations, often comparing my life to others’, and I was constantly thinking, thinking, thinking. I thought it was a good thing that I thought all the time. It’s what everyone does. I thought it was a sign of intelligence that I couldn’t turn my mind off.
Now I realize that belief to be the opposite of the truth. Truly wise people can turn their minds off completely and just be. They still use their minds to certain ends, but they do so consciously and with a high level of laser-like focus. They dwell not on the past or the future, but are consumed entirely by this present moment. Some part of me knew this when I haphazardly pieced together this post on living in the present, but I didn’t really understand what I was writing, nor do I now agree with most of what I wrote in that post.
That may be the case with this post in two years.
And just to be clear, I am nowhere near where I’d like to be with regard to being able to turn my mind off and live perpetually in the present moment. However, I’m just where I need to be, and so are you. So is everyone.
I’m less judgmental now than two years ago. I assume less, argue less, am more easygoing, more open to new ideas, am less tied to my beliefs. I realize my beliefs, every single one of them, is not reality, but my belief about reality. When this realization is at the forefront of one’s consciousness, it becomes difficult to argue with anyone about anything.
I’m happier, and a big part of that happiness results from my being less immersed in my mind. It’s almost as if I’m watching my mind work from a 3rd person perspective. I don’t do this always, but whenever I find myself thinking too much or experiencing some strong emotion, I’m able to back away and sort of observe the childish antics of my mind. Sometimes I’ll even say in my head, “Silly mind. I see you there buddy, and you’re not fooling anyone any longer.”
There are two of you. There’s your mind, then there’s you. You will be conscious forever (or to be more accurate, conscious outside the scope of time). You know all there is to know. You are all-powerful. Your mind is limited, the product of your ego, which is always fighting for center stage, always fighting to assert its identity by clinging to beliefs, clinging to the physical world, deathly afraid of the universal and indisputable fact that everything physical is impermanent. Your mind will not survive your death, and it knows it.
So then the ultimate goal becomes to dissociate from our minds completely so that when we die, it’s just a smooth transition away from the physical experience. By rising above our minds, we achieve conscious immortality, not to mention all of the benefits within this physical existence such as perpetual, unflappable joy, to name one of many.
A practice I do many, many times per day, and which I hope will eventually expand to become my default state of being, is focusing intensely on the present moment by paying close attention to all physical sensations, by being fully aware of my body and my surroundings. Often, as was the case recently as I scooped coffee beans and ground them up for my morning coffee, the sounds are intensified to a large degree, far beyond any normal daily sounds to the point where I hear the individual sounds that comprise the overall sound, if that makes any sense. I’m hyper aware of my movements and of all of my sensations. The clicking sounds of the beans, the way my arm moves at my command and how it feels while it does so, the smell of the air and of the beans, the infinite shards of light reflecting off of the greasy beans, and eventually, the rich, dark, hot taste of freshly brewed coffee. Amazing! When I occasionally achieve this heightened state of consciousness which is not unlike some drug experiences, I smile broadly and sometimes I’ll even laugh out loud at the beauty of the moment, mundane as it may be to my simple mind. Is that crazy?
In those fleeting moments is not happiness, but freedom from happiness. In those moments I experience pure joy. Is that what enlightenment is?
These are ideas I’ve spoken, thought, and written about countless times. But it’s one thing to understand them, and a completely different thing really to experience them deeply. And again, I only experience them briefly and somewhat randomly.
The title of this site is Our Mind Is the Limit. I never thought much about the title but it just kind of came to me, again, seemingly randomly. My intention with that title was to explain over time that we can improve our minds. We can increase our minds’ power, and with practice, be able to use them to their maximum potential. By expanding the limits of our minds, we can expand the limits of our potential and our happiness.
This is all true.
However, I now realize that our ultimate goal should not be to expand our minds, but to go beyond them to a state of pure being. When I had this realization a few days or weeks back, I was delighted when I noted that “Our Mind Is the Limit” is still as appropriate as it ever was.
Our Mind Is the Limit. Our minds, no matter how expanded, intelligent, and full of facts and data and emotions they are, are what limit us as humans. There is a place beyond the mind, a tranquil, infinite place of pure being where there is no such thing as happiness or sadness, no such thing as good or bad. Everything just is, and everything is absolutely perfect.
If we are able to achieve this state of being, while we’ll still experience happiness and sadness and all the rest of the human conditions to which we are necessarily susceptible as long as we inhabit these transient coagulations of flesh, we can look upon these states of mind like a parent looks upon his young child: with love, and from a place of understanding so much higher than the simple human mind that it cannot be articulated in our base human language, but only felt.
The fact that “Our Mind Is the Limit” still applies to my personal philosophy, but now in a much deeper way than in which I initially envisioned, is why I said before that the title came to me seemingly randomly. I wonder if my higher self, my consciousness, or even something beyond me, briefly dipped “down” into my mind to give me the perfect title, a title that will evolve with me and the site. I like to think so, but of course, I don’t know. Maybe it was pure coincidence, if there is such a thing. One day I hope to know for sure.
For those scant few of you who have been here since the beginning, thanks for sticking around. We must quite a bit alike if you’re still interested in reading about these things that most people find completely boring. And for those of you who are new, welcome! Even though we may never have met in person, we are now connected.
As always, best of luck to you on your journey, and I’ll assume the same back from you 😉
Here’s to another two, ten, twenty, fifty or a hundred years, and then onto eternity: the timeless place of pure being.