Mind Chatter - Self-talker in the mind

I can not recall the approximate time, now, when did I begin to notice there was a chatter inside me. The chatter I am talking about here is not a hallucinative one which whispers into our ears, but the one that comes out of the ego from our minds. Or may be I should term it the mind self-talker.

For a brief experiment on myself. I stop writing this post at this point. I close my eyes with an intention of still my thought and see what goes on during the following one minute.

Now I recount what have arisen in the mind. First of all the chatter started "Gee, it is chilly today" "it is cloudy" "what am I doing" "a mind chatter experiment" "what is Robbie doing? on the web? He got a good job." "why my mind is so busy?" "what to write in the blog?" "something that I have experienced." "Chenny promised to broaden his guitar teaching a bit, to include classical guitar music".

To my personal view point, the content that flashed through my mind in the one minute experiment is like a mass of entangled thread. It is possible to be guided toward a desired topic, but once there, it freely jumps onto something else, and just a short moment later it is gone to another one. It is like a curious wild monkey being put on a leash, but never settles down at any time.

If we look into our mind closely we will only then realize our mind is constantly talking and chatting all the time till we fall into sleep. Or perhaps even most of the time during sleep, the mind is still restlessly talking itself into the dream. This incessant mind chatting may result in poor productivity, inefficiency, chronicle fatigue, and eventually become a stubborn part of us that we find it annoying but we just tightly embrace it and react to it. And many of us, unfortunate enough, end up having to rely on sleeping pills, to take anti-depressant, or to consult mental health professionals.

Don't scare me! It is not that serious!

But it is true. I have heard of an estimated figure that one-fourth of the world population will experience some form of mental problem in any given year.

May be you will argue that you only think about happy stuff. Your mind chatting topics are all surrounding good and peaceful notions. Then, I congratulate you that you may be put in the lucky three-fourth world population.

However, according to law of impermanence, there is just nothing that will remain the same permanently. At least we all have to go through the major life issues - aging, sickness and death, each of which will throw us into pathetic mind chatting for sure.

I suppose that 2500 years ago when Prince Siddhatha found the way of ceasing the wandering thoughts and achieved Buddhahood, he realized the cause of suffering was this constant mind chatter that sooner or later leads us into thoughts of craving, hatred and ignorance if we don't get them under control. He decided to walk into the world to teach all the beings the technique of genuine awakening.

Recently I came across this passage when I was searching for discussion group on this topic in Chinese web pages: "狂心若歇﹐歇即菩提" which means "Once the wandering thought ceases, the wisdom emerges." (Please forgive me if my translation is off the original meaning too much.) This text is said to be originated from Surangama Sutra, and has made me ponder on how to tame the wandering mind.

So in the past three years since I was introduced to the Pure Land path, I have been at the same time in quest for the possibility of putting this wandering mind, or mind chatter, at ease, hoping to gain at least some happiness if not the complete awakening.

All the techniques had been tried. Sitting Zen, sutra chanting, visualization, walking meditation, mindfulness training, observing precepts, guided meditation and some mundane methods were adopted at different stage of the quest but the anticipated outcome was dim.

Finally came Master Chin Kung's persuasive explanation about why Buddha most recommended the method of chanting Amituofo to followers of this era.

Because the mind chatter has evolved to be far more stubborn and polluted by today's worldly temptation than the one in ancient days. Now that it is almost impossible to cease its constant chatting, we can coax it into chanting Amituofo. When the chanting becomes the whole thing of the chatter, that state is equivalent to enlightenment.

The logic is convincing to me. What about you?