Thoughts are like clothing.
They often wrap around the essence of ‘who’ we are, confusing us with all the different ways in which they move. Pulling our attention from the center of our being out to all the other things we think we should be concerned with. The more we try to disentangle ourselves, they more they seem to stream around us, ever covering up what it is that truly wants to be expressed.
Sitting in silence, in hopes of finding an escape from the relentless pursuit of thinking, can at times feel futile. We seek to drop down beneath the current flow of busyness, beneath words and thought, by focusing on our breath, or making mental lists of things to remember, or promising ourselves: “I’ll just do this one last thing, then I can settle into silence.”
But if we can stay still long enough and give ourselves up to the silence, we will come to realize that thoughts are like pieces of clothing, accessories that can be changed. They are hand-crafted articles, imbued with the energy of various identities we wish to portray; costumes that we wrap around ourselves, clinging to what we think is important, things we have become attached to, or ways that we define ourselves.
We will discover that our thoughts are merely forms, holograms designed to keep our ego identities intact, then we become free to explore how to peel them off, much as we would shed a jacket or take off a shirt.