How to Lead a Conscious Life: The Issue Is that We Are All Conditioned
Scientists tell us that the planet Earth is 5 billion years old. It’s already been through numerous transformations. Life in various forms has arisen and fallen, from the earliest one celled organisms, through various geological periods, often disrupted through cataclysmic events. Dinosaurs and their earlier predecessors were wiped out what? 60 million years ago, and mammals managed to survive.
Ultimately resulting in things like dolphins, whales in the oceans, and primates, such as monkeys, chimpanzees, orangutangs, and ourselves. One way or another we are the result of 5 billion years of chemical and DNA transmission. And we live in an incredibly narrow environment, where there is little variation in temperature, chemical composition of the atmosphere with not too little and not too much oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc.
Out of millions, then hundreds of thousands, then thousands, hundreds, decades, suddenly this particular manifestation of “Universal Consciousness” has arisen. The paradox is that on the one hand it operates by automatic pilot, from previous causes and conditions. And yet, somehow it adapts and changes. So we are the result of that interplay of unconscious conditioning, and conscious choices that have somehow, inconceivably occurred.
The question is, when our very existence is under stress, how do we adapt and make the change, or do we go the way of the dinosaurs? Some humans are overtaken by the idea of manipulation and control, and try to merely make changes in the physical realm, and, not taking into account their own mental, psychological and spiritual conditioning, fall into the trap of individual consciousness, selfishness, and their attending malfunctions. And too often such individuals gain control of whole groups of people and societies.
“If you think one strange thought, people will think your crazy. If you can convince 100 people, it is a cult. If you attract a million people, it’s a religion or a political movement, or even a country”.
In some cases the thought will be useful and wholesome but in other cases where the leader gets control of people’s thoughts, it goes astray. “Convince people of an absurdity, and you can convince them to commit atrocities”.
How to Protect Ourselves and Overcome Our Conditioning
There is good conditioning and bad conditioning. As children, first we are given a name, and then training on how to interact with others, and survive. Crossing the street in traffic can lead to early death. Learning skills that allow us to support ourselves is another form of useful ‘programming’.
Unuseful programming consists of two forms. First, mental habits that don’t serve us. Compulsiveness, short temper, greed, unbalanced selfishness, mental fragmentation, which separates us from reality in the moment. Second, is programming or conditioning from outside ourselves, notably by society, and those who ‘control the narrative’.
The Cure for All of This is Mindful Awareness Out of Which Come Three Mental Skills
First of all, we have to reverse the process of thought creation. Take a minute, close your eyes and notice your thoughts. You will probably find that they just flow like water in a river. They are all mental creations based on past experiences.
“All we are is the result of what we have thought”
The quote “All that we are is the result of what we have thought” is the opening verse of the Dhammapada, a foundational text of Buddhism attributed to Gautama Buddha. The full passage states: “All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon. If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.”
While popularly paraphrased as “We are what we think,” scholars note that the original Pali text emphasizes that mental states (dhammā) are preceded by and wrought by the mind, rather than asserting that thoughts physically create the external world. The teaching highlights the causal link between intention, action, and the resulting experience of suffering or happiness.