Meditation, The Narrator, and Self-Therapy

The years have piled up on me and through them I have at times been happy, have been sad, have suffered, have been calm.  Over the years and as a lesson hard-won, looking at mind with its ups and downs, I find one thing stands out.  If mind identifies with a narrator, somebody who tells his or her story, then dukkha, suffering, is greater.  The narrator is a voice, a series of thoughts, or images, that seems to have continuity, but in fact it comes and goes.  I also found that a narrator impartially takes credit for bad feelings as well as good ones when in fact either kind of feeling doesn't depend on a narrator.  They just happen. They arise and fall away, just as the narrator arises and falls away.  There is no continuous stream.  The continuity is ego's necessary fiction.  Yes, in life we have a story-line.  We were born at a certain place. Went to school somewhere. Married.  Etc.

But all that is in what we call the past.  The narrator needs the past (and the future) to maintain itself.  We have only now as our thoughts and feelings arise and pass away.  We can add something to them or just watch them happen. The narrator thinks they're you but in a moment they disappear as it does also.

We can't get rid of the narrator but we can see through it.  Seeing through it helps relieve us from suffering. ( I distinguish suffering (mental) from pain (physical).)  

We can see through it by noting when we feel good.  The feeling doesn't need a narrator to increase it.  It's just there, sometimes with a narrator. When we feel bad, the feeling doesn't need a narrator.  Indeed, when a narrator is added the bad feeling worsens.  ("Nobody understands me."  "It's all hopeless."  "This is the story of my life."  These are just examples.  Each of us can choose our own favorite story line.)

I don't know much about Taoism but a phrase resonates.  The Tao that can be seen is not the true Tao.  What you are is what mind cannot grasp.  Maybe you want to save that for later in your investigations, though.  I'll just ask you to think about this: Are you your brain? If so, where does the "me" thought come from?  Can you find it?  Are you in your body?  Etc.  The point here is that whatever you can identify is itself another object, physical or mental.  Are you an object? Or are you that which sees objects? Similarly you see objects in space but not space itself.

A few people grasp all that without ever meditating.  I am not one of them.  It took many years of meditation for me.  So that's my advice.  In the beginning five minutes of meditation daily can help.  Over time the five can be extended to ten, the ten to twenty, etc.  Whenever it is neglected the mind wants to take over, get itself back in control with thoughts such as "I have no time for this," or "This is a waste of time," or "It just isn't my cup of tea," etc. Notice that the ego is involved in each denial.  Meditation, as it deepens, reveals the folly of clinging to egoic assertions.