Tips for dealing with annoying daily mind noise?

Josh Campbell, modified 12 Years ago at 9/11/12 10:48 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 9/11/12 10:48 PM

Tips for dealing with annoying daily mind noise?

Posts: 9 Join Date: 8/19/12 Recent Posts
I have been doing daily life practice for about two years. I experienced major perceptual shifts at various times and do not really feel like a "me" anymore. In fact, as I go about my day, go to work, or walk in the park, I kind of feel like "this system is just functioning all by itself." It's cool.

However, there is so much damn mind noise all the time! The arising and passing of commercial jingles, songs i heard on the radio, and the like just go round and round in my head all day long. It's just annoying. I really experience these mental objects as not-self and just making their appearance on their own, but, again, its annoying. If my concentration is really good then I can just focus my attention on the sounds of the present moment (like traffic or the birds). However, if i'm tired or sluggish then the mind noise just amplifies.

I feel like the suffering of creating a false self out of non-dual sensations has ceased for the most part. So, yeah, not much suffering there. However, is this type of suffering to be expected based on my just having a mind and body?

Josh
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N A, modified 12 Years ago at 9/12/12 12:42 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 9/12/12 12:23 AM

RE: Tips for dealing with annoying daily mind noise?

Posts: 157 Join Date: 7/10/11 Recent Posts
If you're just talking about "earworms", why not enjoy them instead?
When I get a song stuck in my head (which is more or less all the time), I just start singing it...

Another idea: stop listening to commercials and the radio? Some pretty obvious cause and effect there, no?
L O, modified 12 Years ago at 9/12/12 6:32 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 9/12/12 6:32 AM

RE: Tips for dealing with annoying daily mind noise?

Posts: 213 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Surely no sensation can be experienced as annoying or not without a process of selfing occurring to make it so?

Some perhaps more practical thoughts:
1) I've seen at least one person here complain that he found the quietness of his mind that has settled lately to be unpleasant. The grass is always greener, no? Says a lot about the nature of mind, I think. Worthy of investigation?

2) Shinzen Young has a meditation to deal with 'echo talk' and whatnot here (pdf download, right click). I never did this, as for me the desire for a quiet mind was part of my problem, it's easier for me to just note, and learning yet another meditation just to start meditating seemed like avoidance.

3) I've found that irregardless of the amount of sensations I am exposed to that I don't want to come back up, e.g. Britney Spears songs, the mind will drag something from yonks ago up to cheerfully echo through my mind for the whole darn retreat even if I haven't listened to radio for a year.

4) Go and work in a hospital ward in which you are expected to do everyone's blood pressure measurements manually with a not-wonderful stethoscope, despite the bleeps, creaks, occasional shouts and incessant chatter. I was forced to develop patience with such distractions or else explode ;) Similarly happens on retreats to annoyances, sink or swim is dangerous but when it works, it works.
Josh Campbell, modified 12 Years ago at 9/12/12 10:13 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 9/12/12 10:13 AM

RE: Tips for dealing with annoying daily mind noise?

Posts: 9 Join Date: 8/19/12 Recent Posts
Thanks for the advice and food for thought. I realized this morning that I had not been clearly investigating the sensations that I was labeling as "annoying." For the past few hours I have been paying careful attention to the subtle dissatisfaction that is experienced when the thought, "won't this damn song stop playing in my head" arises. When I really tune into that feeling there is a quiet spaciousness around the whole thing and it loosens up. The song also fades to the background of awareness too!

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