In Cast Away, Tom Hanks’ character finds a friend he can talk to (with?) in Wilson, pictured here. One of the first questions that arose for me as the stillness and quietude I was enjoying in meditation began to manifest in “daily practical life” was: could I function without self-referential internal narrative (SRIN) thoughts – those thoughts about I, me, mine that are about the past and future? Remember, one of Gary Weber’s rules in stopping his suffering through stopping his SRIN is he had to be fully functional. Same was true for me.
Such thoughts have been a constant companion to me for all my life, as long as I can remember – “someone” to talk to – and I could even do both sides of the dialog. It was familiar and I was at first concerned and even a bit scared to “lose my only friend” like Tom Hanks’ character. How would I function?
Then it got even weirder. I noticed that when I was in daily life and thoughts stopped, even briefly, there was no sense of “knowing that I know.” No SRIN thoughts meant no conceptualization and no verbalization. If I was walking my cat, there was just what was happening – no labels. That would come after” “Oh! There’s my cat!” Now, these were of very short duration, but were unmistakable.
The experience, which I first noticed 20 years ago as a curiosity, was the arising of an intent or idea or “will” and then the narration would play out – a visit through “storyland’ is how it appeared to me – then the action would arise to implement the intent/idea. But, oddly enough, if the narration did not occur, it all still worked! Actually, worked as well if not better! I didn’t know how the narration was stopped – there was no conscious awareness of preventing the narration – though there was a feeling of will being exerted to not go into narration. There was only witnessing that the narration did not arise. Like making a choice or raising my arm or digesting food – there was awareness of it happening, but no awareness of how it happened.
So I was initially fearful of what it would be like if I didn’t consciously know any longer and didn’t generate a story to “understand” what was happening. I believe that any knowing and understanding that was needed happens at the level of the unconscious – the elephant in Gary’s video.
Then, about 9 months after this, out of the blue, I had this clear vision that I could fully function without SRIN and that the experience would be more direct, more pure and more “true”. And the fear and concern vanished. In a sense, like my subconscious let the conscious part see how it would all be OK, and the conscious part surrendered control.
Since then, the experiences of stillness have become more frequent and longer, I don’t have to remember to do it and it’s pretty much happening on its own. I am fully functional and can go about my daily life without relying on the internal narrative as a companion.
I’m treating the eradicating of the SRIN like breaking a bad habit while strengthening a muscle.
Give it a try and see how it is for you. When you can notice the stillness and quietude in your meditation, can you notice it in your practical life.
Caution: I don’t suggest trying it out while driving a vehicle until you are comfortable with the stillness and no thought 😉
