The Wandering MInd

Once upon a time I learned to tie my shoes. Actually I learned to tie my shoelaces, but this is a mere technicality. I remember standing in front of a bedroom window with a foot on a chair and the evening sun streaming in. Slowly I crossed one lace over the other to form an X. Then, I suppose, I formed a loop with my left hand…and, in time, I got the laces tied. I was about five years old. It probably wasn’t too many weeks before I could tie my shoes without consciously thinking about the process; my mind then could wander off to nudge other subjects into consciousness. And it probably did.

Over the years I have developed an amateur thesis of how the mind works. There are many components to the mind, of course. One component is storage boxes for bits of information. (Please that I am a mechanical engineer by training.) Some boxes contain data at birth, and the same original pieces of data are linked to one another at birth by electro-chemical trails of some sort. This is to say, inelegantly, that we are hard-wired when we are born. We know how to make sounds, pee, digest, and so on. We didn’t learn to do this, as was the case for tying shoes, we just knew.

As time goes along, we pick up new pieces of data through our senses and store some of it in empty boxes located in various parts of the mind. Certain pieces are linked to others via the trails I mentioned. The pick up, storage, and linking is “learning.” If we use and reuse a particular trail, it becomes wider, like a footpath through the grass on a college campus. So, at later points in time, we have hard-wired trails plus some footpaths in the mind. Eventually, we have a zillion footpaths.

With more and more use, footpaths become hardened, even paved, suggesting there then exists an established connection—perhaps a whole network of connections—which we use to do things. We learn and then we behave and/or think, based on that learning. With enough use (repetition), a connection can graduate into a road or maybe even a freeway, which could be termed a habit, or perhaps a rut.

As connections become more solidified, we actually can use them essentially automatically, i.e., without consciously thinking about them. For example, most of us think about peripheral things as we drive down a relatively empty freeway. If something out of place occurs, in a flash we re-engage our mind in the driving, of course. But if everything is normal, basically our mind wanders. Now what does this mean?

Absent stimuli from our senses, it means—through some process I don’t understand—the lens of the mind rotates or roams amidst the web of trails, and it usually hones in at random on different subjects (e.g. thoughts) as if sampling what is available. Everyone’s mind wanders; at least teachers of mediation say this is so. And I believe it. [Note: Jung suggests there are also subterranean levels of the mind with arrays of paths, some hard-wired, and also a whole collection of characters dubbed archetypes. We may encounter these contents when they float “up” into consciousness while asleep, dreaming.]

Wandering can (will!) occur in a person who is concentrating on a well-developed path, even one hard-wired, like breathing. I am finding it very difficult to “stay with the breath;” my mind rushes off in one direction or another seeking fresh content from the inventory in the mind. The mind seeks on its own volition, and it makes me wonder just who is in charge here? My teachers say: Just note where the mind goes and then bring it back to the breathing. Keep working to make breathing the centerpiece of “awareness.” Breathing is handy. This process is apparently the challenge confronting those who opt to meditate.

Following is a quote from a book by Deikman titled, The Observing Self. The quote may or may not shed light on the subject of wandering.

“The distinction between awareness and the content of awareness tends to be ignored in Western psychology, its implications for our everyday life are not appreciated. Indeed, most people have trouble recognizing the difference between awareness and content, which are part of everyday life. Yet, careful observation shows people that they can suspend their thoughts, that they can experience silence or darkness and the temporary absence of images or memory patterns—that any element of mental life can disappear while awareness itself remains. Awareness is the ground (the lens?) of conscious life, the background or field in which all elements exist, different from thoughts, sensations, or images. One can experience the distinction simply by looking straight ahead. Be aware of what you experience, then close your eyes. Awareness remains. ‘Behind’ your thoughts and images is awareness, and that is where you are.

“What we know as our self is separate from our thoughts, memories, feelings, and any content of consciousness. No Western psychological theory concerns itself with this fundamental fact; all describe the self in terms of everything but the observer, who is the center of all experience. This crucial omission stems from the fact that the observing self is an anomaly—not an object (like a lens!) like everything else. Our theories are based on objects; we think in terms of objects, talk in terms of objects……  Images, memories, and thoughts are objects we grasp, manipulate, and encompass by awareness just as we do the components of the physical world. In contrast, we cannot observe the observing self; we must experience it directly. It has no defining qualities, no boundaries, no dimensions…..

“Lacking understanding of this elusive, central self, how are we to answer the essential questions ‘Who am I?’  ‘What am I?’

“Both Yogic and Buddhist metaphysics and psychology emphasize the crucial difference between the observer and the content of consciousness and use meditation techniques to heighten the observing self. As with meaning, mystics hold that answering ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Why am I?’ requires a special mode of perception.”

                                             * * *

So, what does all this have to do with wandering mind?

To the extent that meditating corrals a wandering mind and gathers it beneath the umbrella of “awareness,” it collects the material world in one place so possibly there is a wholeness experienced. Possibly.