Hey Joe,

I’ve also been meditating for about 20 years, and completed several 10-day silent meditation retreats (Goenka style). I agree that meditation can seem to lead to a quieting of the mind, but this is only a side effect of awareness and equanimity. The “internal” process stops shouting so loudly when it’s no longer being resisted. But entering meditation with the goal of quieting the mind is an almost guaranteed way to more of what you seem to be trying to get rid of.

The ultimate recognition, that was actually revealed here after only about 60 hours of meditation, is that thoughts are no more personal that walls or ceilings. They’re just part of what’s happening in the wholeness of non-separation in which there is nowhere for a separate self to be. The mind can be unquiet just as a storm can form in the sky. It’s not about anyone. “What the hell am I doing?” Is not about anyone. There’s nobody for it to be about.

There’s never been an ego. The ego is a misunderstanding of what’s happening, which is what the self-illusion does with everything. It tries to split the non-separate wholeness into mine/not-mine, good/bad, right/wrong. Thoughts belong to no one, are about no one, and have no inherent charge. They’re just part of what seems to be happening and they seem to arise and pass away. They are just the non-separate absolute appearing as thoughts.

I’m not trying to minimize the experience of suffering. I get it. But the solution is not to fight suffering. The solution is to discover the truth.