The Spider on the Web

When I was in school, one of my favorite courses was music theory. I had long been a big fan of classical music. My father had a record collection, and I liked to play the records even when I was a kid. Now, finally, I was understanding how the music was composed. We’d go through different pieces, analyze the harmony, analyze the structure, the modulations. It was fascinating to see the craft, the way in which those little notes on the page could be made to express all kinds of emotions.

Then one day in class we got to a piece by Bach—one of his slow movements, a very beautiful piece. As the professor was asking people to do an analysis, one of the guys in the back of the room said, “This piece should not be analyzed. That would be a sacrilege, because it’s just too beautiful.” He went on and on about how important it was not to take beauty apart. But my attitude was that with something that beautiful, that compelling, you really want to know how it’s done.

The same principle applies to your thoughts. One of the reasons we get the mind really, really still—as still as we can get it—and then try to keep it there, is so that we can see the process by which the mind will slip away from its stillness, by which a distracting thought will arise. A lot of times there will be thoughts you say are perfectly innocent. As far as you can see, there’s nothing wrong with them. Why should you try to banish them?

But actually, you want to see the process by which thoughts are constructed, how a thought world, how a state of becoming is put together, so that you can understand why the compelling ones have so much power. You want to get really quick at that to see what the different stages are, until you can catch it at the stage where it’s just a little stirring in the border between mind and body and the breath energy. On that stirring, you slap a perception that this is a thought about x, and then you decide whether to run with it or not, where to take it. In that moment of slapping the perception on: What’s behind that, what’s making that choice? It can be pretty arbitrary. After all, prior to that, it was just a little stirring of energy.

You want to get to know this process really well, starting with thoughts that don’t have much impact on you, don’t seem to be harmful at all—just mild, entertaining little thoughts—because you want to be able to apply the same analysis to thoughts that have a deep impact on you, that arouse strong feelings of lust or anger, anguish, shame in the unhealthy sense, despair. These things seem really real and yet they’re created by the same process that creates your harmless little entertaining thoughts. The problem with these stronger thoughts is that they can have a huge impact on your future. They can take you places where you really wouldn’t want to go, because they’re part of a larger cause-and-effect process.

So learn the value of getting the mind really still and really alert. My favorite image of this state is a spider on its web. The web extends across a broad area. The spider is at one spot in the web, but it’s sensitive to the whole web. If anything comes along and hits the web, it immediately goes over, deals with it, and returns to its spot. In the same way, you want everything in the body to be connected: Your awareness, the breath, a sense of well-being, all fill the body. Then you stay there, alert. If anything comes—any slight disturbance in the breath energy—you want to zap it.

You’ll notice that there are lapses in your awareness, lapses in your alertness when those little stirrings actually do become thoughts. Well, however far the thought has gone, drop it. If it’s in mid-sentence, drop it. If its ends are dangling, drop it. Right there, you’ll see a part of the mind that says, “Hey, I want to complete this.” Well, why? Interrogate that. A part of the mind says, “I really do want to think about this.” Well, why? Right now is the time to be quiet. Those issues can be thought about some other time. You don’t want to be caught by the hooks when you’re dealing with these random little thoughts, because the hooks of the more Velcro-covered thoughts can really get you. If you don’t watch out, if you can’t refrain yourself from entertaining the entertaining thoughts, it’s going to be harder not to just jump into and wallow around in the thoughts that feed your defilements and are really harmful.

You want to see that they’re just like classical music: nothing more than notes, modulations, harmonies. There are not that many possible chords of music, not that many notes on the scale, yet we can create all kinds of powerful music out of them.

In the same way, there are not that many things going on in the mind. The five aggregates: That’s it. But we can create all kinds of variations, some of which can have a huge impact. You want to see why a particular combination has that impact. Why do you treat some thoughts as if they were sacrosanct? “I don’t want to touch them. I don’t want to analyze them. I just want to wallow in them.” Well, why? What’s the reason? What’s the motivation? That’s what you’re looking for.

When they talk about analyzing things into the aggregates, you can see, yeah, lots of things are inconstant, stressful, and not-self, no big deal, because they’re not the things you really latch on to. It’s when you can apply those perceptions to things that have a lot of meaning to you—so that you can see that they really are meaningless and they really are harmful—that’s when the analysis really hits home.

So perfect your skills on the little entertaining thoughts and also have your values prepared so that when the bigger thoughts come, you’ll be willing to question your desire to go with them—your desire not to disturb them, not to analyze them. Actually, those are the thoughts that are most deserving of analysis. That’s where the real work needs to be done. It’s like that piece by Bach. It has a huge impact. Well, it’s good to know why. Your own thoughts that have a huge impact: Why? They’re made out of the same aggregates that meaningless thoughts are made out of. You want to dig into what’s the difference. That’s where the cause of suffering lies. That’s where the clinging lies—the suffering itself: That’s what you really want to comprehend.