Notice the "I", Pay Attention to the "Me"

The quiet voice in my head hummed along as I walked.

Notice the “I” and the “Me”.

Pay attention to the "Me"

In a dream-like state, the sound of my footsteps down Fillmore street filled my ears with a predicable click and clack noise providing a background note for the inward process that was taking place. A process in which I found myself catching each and every thought that the mind attempted to race after, having sprung free like a jailbroken convict.

I began to say to myself in my mind:

This is such a strange experience, I must rem- …

The observer quietly echoed the word “I” within my mind, and the thought trailed off like a spark blown out by a gust of wind.

Several seconds more passed with one left footstep followed by the right, the sunlight and strange happenings of my surroundings catching my eye.

Another thought now rushed to the forefront of my attention.

But surely I cannot live like thi- …

Again, the process watching the I’s pointed out in a redundant echo the word “I”. The thought trailed off into a hushed murmur.

Where am I going?

The voice again underscored the word “I” repeating it back, and the subsequent thought folded in on itself. Strangely, as if it were some sort of addictive mobile game, these three consecutive occurrences lent me a “bonus” response:

Are you watching?

I had no answer.

For several hours this process continued in rapid succession. A thought would emerge, and this second process would ever so subtly point out each and every use of the words: “I”, “Me” and “My”. If you have tried this or a form of mindfulness before you may be keenly aware of how exhausting, lucid, and timid this process makes the mind; Each new thought is observed with a crushing level of awareness and rigour leading one to a downshift gears, cognitively speaking, in order to keep up. Everything became slower, tranquil, and dream-like. External observations became even more childish in their narration:

Bird

Flower

Shoe

Joy

Step

Step

Turning now

Weee

Sometimes labels were spontaneously applied to the external objects and other times only the presence of the view itself remained: a mind blank. This could have only emerged by my estimate from the overwhelm of feedback in the self-referential monologue of thought. Like the application of excessive reverb to an audio track leading only to white noise. This quietness did not come about from a means of force, however. There was no addendum stating that I must, “Suppress the thoughts about myself”. Instead, it was an almost comedy-like process of pointing out this automatic and mechanical nature of the mind. It is a method by which the mind can be cornered into quietness. But this experience in walking meditation lasted only one day and did not have any enduring psychological advantages (of which I am aware). I found myself wondering thereafter:

(E: Ego), (S: Self)

E: How can this be the way in which the mind becomes quiet? There is much effort involved. How could it be possible that the individual bears this focused awareness in every waking hour? Surely you cannot live like this.

S: One must choose between the turmoil of thoughts or the effort to maintain awareness of those thoughts.

The idea to experiment with this “process” spawned from listening to a series of public talks given by Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher, in Ojai in 1949 collectively titled: Self Knowledge Is the Beginning of Wisdom. Not by explicit recommendation, but instead, through earnest inquiry, “Where does the ‘Me’, come from?”

It remains one of the stranger memories I have of San Francisco.