A viewer left a comment that lands like a mirror: thought is where suffering happens, and yet the pull to orient to thought can feel irresistible.
It’s not just that thoughts are sticky. It’s that the relationship with thought can become familiar in the same way any unhealthy loop becomes familiar: you know it hurts, and you return anyway—because it’s what you know.
And when you return, you often return with force. You push thoughts away, judge yourself for having them, punish yourself for getting lost in them. It can feel like a kind of inner violence.
There’s a way out that doesn’t require winning a fight with thought. It requires seeing clearly what familiarity costs—and resting in what doesn’t grasp.
A Comment That Nailed It
I have a really great comment here under one of the videos. I thought I would read it.
It says:
“Not orienting to thought is the hardest part. It’s obvious thought is where suffering is, yet the habit to orient to thought is so strong. It’s like being in an abusive relationship. You know it’s not good for you, yet you keep coming back because it’s what you’re used to.”
This is so accurate. And it’s actually not far off.
When Thought Feels Like an Abusive Relationship
The comparison to an abusive relationship is apt.
Because the same communication style you might have in abusive relationships is not unlike the communication style you have with your own inner experience—your own thoughts.
[Possible clarification needed: this is a metaphor for the compulsive habit-loop with thought, not a comparison meant to minimize real abuse.]
When thoughts appear and you don’t like the effect they have on you, you try to push them away.
And then you beat yourself up.
It’s like: I’m going to abuse myself. I’m going to punish myself for having that thought, or believing that thought, or getting lost in thought.
Internally, it feels like self-violence.
Maybe you learned self-violence from trauma. Maybe someone did emotional, verbal, or physical violence to you in the past.
But even if that wasn’t the case, it’s not uncommon to have a sense of lack, shame, inadequacy—and to respond internally by judging yourself, doubting yourself, beating yourself up.
Inadequacy, Doubt, and the Sense of Separation
In my experience, in my opinion, that feeling of inadequacy—this feeling that something is wrong—and the tendency to doubt ourselves and our experience, doubt our choices or seeming choices… it grows out of the sense of being separate.
Being small and distinct from everything else.
Reality feels divided. And internally, we feel divided.
We don’t know what’s what. We don’t know what to trust, what not to trust. We don’t know what to move toward and what to move away from.
So we get into the business of management: pushing and pulling and struggling.
In the final analysis—in direct insight—that’s not necessary. It turns out you don’t have to do that at all.
It turns out it can stop happening. It can cease.
But in the meantime, you’ll notice something about thoughts specifically is sticky.
Why Thought Is Sticky: Compelling, Anxious, Confusing
Sticky is a good word for it.
There’s something about thoughts that’s compelling.
There’s something about thoughts that’s anxiety-provoking.
There’s something about thoughts that’s confusing.
There’s something about thoughts that triggers doubt.
And with all of that, there’s something about thoughts that comes with a sense of familiarity.
That’s what the comment is pointing to, and it’s very accurate.
Even though I have this uncomfortable, oppositional relationship with my own thoughts, there’s something about it that feels normal.
Maybe even “natural,” although I prefer to use natural for what’s unconditioned by thought and mind.
But it feels familiar.
The Cost of Familiarity
So here’s the question. Or the challenge.
Not just for this commenter. For anybody.
Can you adequately assess the cost of familiarity?
Can you adequately assess the cost of moving toward familiarity simply because it’s familiar—as if that’s the only motivator?
It’s not the only motivator, of course. For anyone. For you, for the person who made the comment, it’s not the only motivator.
It’s just the one that gets the most attention. Or it gets enough attention to be problematic.
So can you evaluate the cost/benefit analysis of that?
(This isn’t philosophical. It’s practical.)
[Possible clarification needed: “cost/benefit analysis” here means seeing consequences clearly, not creating another rumination loop.]
If you do this thoroughly enough, you may start to see shifting.
When you consistently see the cost is very high—the cost of going down a familiar, well-worn path of doubt, or a familiar path of fantasy, mental fantasy, daydreaming, whatever—when you see the cost clearly, are you going to keep doing it?
This isn’t a moralistic question. It’s not a judgmental question.
The answer is: at some point, you won’t.
At some point you realize the cost is too high. It’s not worth it to you.
Self-Violence Is Sustained by Not Seeing Clearly
Self-violence is partially—or maybe largely—sustained by not seeing clearly what you’re doing.
Not seeing the implications of how you move your attention, or allow attention to be moved.
When you see clearly, you come to a place where you realize self-violence, self-abandonment, all of this… it’s mostly habit.
It’s not that there’s some big, deep core secret darkness in you.
It might seem like that for a while. You may have those beliefs.
But look at the beliefs closely. See the benefit, risk, and cost of believing them.
We do that with everything.
My point is: this is habit force. A habit keeps binding us back into this.
Unbinding: Resting in Not Grasping
When you start to break the habit, you’ll have moments of clarity.
Peace.
It’s like: I’m not going to grab a thought. There’s no thought to grab here.
Or I should say: there’s no reason to grab a thought.
Sure, thoughts can appear. But there’s no compelling absolute reason to grab a thought.
No absolute reason to get bought into a thought. To get entangled.
It’s habit. That’s all it really is.
So you can start to rest in that.
I call it unbinding sometimes. It feels like not grasping.
Can you rest in not grasping?
Can you rest in not identifying with the next thought?
Can you rest with turning a little bit away from the familiar?
The Momentary Mystery That Isn’t a Mental Process
Can you look into this momentary mystery?
It isn’t technically unfamiliar. In one sense, it’s more familiar than what the mind thinks is familiar.
But it’s a different kind of familiarity. A deeply instinctual resonance.
An openness. Clarity.
But not a mental process.
It’s not a thought.
And you can rest here.
You don’t need to grasp the familiar.
And if you keep doing this cost/benefit analysis—if you keep seeing the cost—then not only will you not need to grasp the familiar, you won’t want to grasp it anymore.
Because, like you said, it’s a bit like an abusive relationship.
Even the Thought “I Keep Doing It” Is Just Another Thought
The belief: “Oh, I just keep doing it. I keep binding into it. It’s so enticing.”
That’s another belief.
The same mechanism can happen with that thought too.
It might feel familiar to know what your problem is—as if you have one.
What happens when you don’t bind to that familiarity?
What happens if you let that story drop: “Oh, this always happens to me.”
Does it?
What’s happening right now?
Right Now: No Process to Maintain
The stories we tell ourselves are crazy.
“This always happens to me. In the past, in the past, in the past. So it’s going to happen in the future, in the future, in the future.”
I’m just saying: what’s happening right now?
None of that is happening now. Nothing’s happening. There’s no process here.
[Possible clarification needed: “nothing’s happening” points to no story/process being required in the now, not that perceptions/sensations aren’t present.]
This is non-activity. Non-arising. Non-appearing. Non-departing. No process.
[Possible clarification needed: “non-arising” language is used as a pointer to immediate experience as non-process, not a claim about events never happening.]
It’s a kind of pure awakeness. Presence, maybe. A sort of clarity, maybe.
I’m saying maybe because I don’t want you to grab any word and turn it into that.
Don’t turn it into a thought.
Don’t Replace Doubt With Its Opposite
It doesn’t have to be familiar or unfamiliar.
You can let go of doubt and not turn it into the opposite.
Because the opposite would be a thought.
It’s just what it is. Just this here.
And this hereness doesn’t grasp.
This hereness cannot be defined.
This hereness is nothing that a thought can grasp.
Let “Don’t Grasp” Be the End of Self-Violence
So the end of self-violence ends up being a willingness to not react.
Not grasp.
Not push.
Not pull.
Not judge.
Not defend.
Not reject.
And yet there’s a whole lot here: clarity, textures, brilliance, peace.
Just don’t grasp.
Let that be the end of the self-violence.