First thank you for having this conversation with me it is helping me examine my ideas more in depth and solidify some of my beliefs. I apologize that I can be more rambly than poetic, and sometimes what I say isn't exactly what I mean.
Can you really? The idea that we have this agency and choice is a very powerful, very convincing one - I got caught up on this for a while.
Really contemplate and inquire about this. Lets say you want to think about popcorn - how does that happen? Do you really consciously decide, "I am now going to think about popcorn," and then you do. Or does a thought about popcorn just spring into your head, on its own, and then another thought follows that says, "ohhh, popcorn, yeah I'm going to keep thinking about that!"
If this second scenario is true, are you actually deciding to think about popcorn? Or are you already thinking about it, and then once you have already been thinking about it, you have another thought that retroactively says, "I chose to have these thoughts about popcorn." What came first, the thought about popcorn randomly springing into your head, or the "choice" to have thoughts about popcorn?
This popcorn example is a good one and similar to day dream analogy I made. When I read the line the image of a bag of popcorn popped into my mind. However I did not sit the entire afternoon dwelling upon popcorn. I noticed that the point was not particularly about popcorn and let the image go. We all have a thoughts and you have some ability to either be with these thoughts, let them go and perhaps choose instead to focus more on the present moment. The first step is of course observation, realizing we are attached or thinking about something at all. This isn't to say this capacity is infinite, or can't be improved or there are thoughts and ideas so engulfing we can not be indifferent towards them. The ideal of enlightenment or a sage is just that, an ideal.
I believe you, I and everyone innately have the ability to prioritize your thoughts and actions to achieve certain outcomes. Like if you were hungry you are probably able to feed yourself some way, or have some idea how you would go about doing it. If this ability did not exist our society, our civilization would simply not exist. This is what makes human beings so unique and probably the reason we have such a developed mind. It isn't necessarily free will, or absolute control over your thoughts as free won't, which is well proven and documented. Human beings have a well developed ability to stop themselves from acting on impulses in the present to reap rewards in the future. For instance if you were apart of a primitive society you might decide not to have sex with the chieftain's wife because it would get you murdered. In the present you might decide to put your money in a bank for the future instead of spending it the instant you got it. You might decide that investing into education or training will reap you long term benefits or that having sex without a condom even though it feels better might lead to long term consequences. And so you do not have to be a victim to your thoughts of popcorn, you might decide that thinking about it is not as productive to you as doing something else is.
I guess we can boil this down ad infinitum where we are asking where did the idea of prioritization come form, the impulse to do it, how do we decide what is important etc. etc. etc. Perhaps we are all just products of our environments, and genetics, and the flow of our lives is predestined. That we are permanent victims to this process and whatever thought happens to arise. Or perhaps by observing these processes, really looking deep down inside to see what is really there and why, we can feel the flow, and if not steer it entirely, move within it somewhat according to our on volition. Again, I think it all starts with observation, to relax you have to feel the tension, to let go you have to be aware of the attachment.
You actually can be more in depth. If something exists, you should be able to describe it based on your direct experience of it. If it doesn't exist, then not being able to describe it is perfectly reasonable. If you are convinced that "I am", then what is this "I" that is?
This question might be uncomfortable - thats fine, don't fight the discomfort.
First, answering this question does make me feel somewhat uncomfortable because I do not have a well defined answer. I have not sat around and ruminated on the thought much. I guess I will start with your two statements about describing things that exist and do not exist. I do not believe that if I am unaware of something it does not exist, to me this is illogical. I think there are plenty of things out there that exists right now even though I am completely unaware of them. In fact I believe things exist that no conscious being is aware of and there might even exist things that no conscious being will ever be aware of. Secondly is very possible to perfectly describe things that do not exist, perhaps not "perfectly" but close enough anyway, like is done in fiction, or movies. A good movie on the concept is The Matrix where everyone is living in a reality that isn't even real, however very well described.
To answer the "I am" question right now I lean heavily towards a non-dual existence. Oddly enough I did not completely arrive to this idea through Buddhist or other religious teachings on the subject (thought they did influence it) but through something I read when I was in eighth grade in a book I do not remember, and something a creationist use to say on the TV and through my understanding of thermodynamic diagramming. Anyway what this creationist used to say, and what the book said was, either we were the product of god or the universe itself evolved and was conscious, that we are the consciousness of the universe walking and talking and fucking etc. That always resonated with me. The thermodynamic aspect of it is when you go to solve a problem on, lets say, how much gas an engine consumes you first create a boundary. You say I am only going to consider what is inside this box then draw the box (most of the time not actually, just mentally). So your box might exclude whatever the engine is powering, or ambient temperatures and pressures, or whatever else ignoring makes the problem easy to solve. The fact of the matter is we walk around everyday drawing the same boxes, people draw one around their person as if it separates you from the rest of the world, as if what they do affects nothing and what happens outside of this box does not affect them. Truthfully this box doesn't really exist, you are directly connected to everything around you chemically, thermodynamically, electrically and all the other forms of mass and energy transfer (my thought is more in the traditional scientific sense of energy rather than the mental or spiritual type of notions which have not been proven as of yet, etc.) So to sum up the very difficult question of what I mean when I say I am. If I am conscious and a part of the universe than it must be said the universe is conscious. Through me, through you, through everything that can think and act. Even the parts that can not think or act are part of this entity, truly only separably arbitrarily (For instance you can build a wall of atoms to separate different kinds of atoms but from the outside its still a bunch of atoms and still a part of all that is.) So when I say that I am, I am trying to say that all that exist exists and is aware of its own existence. Anyway this is just how I lean currently. The "I am" question is a very deep one and at the moment I am trying to be more practical. That is a question which might have an answer I will ever be able to know and knowing might be of no benefit.
You might want to re-evaluate this belief...
You don't let go by trying to tighten "your" control of "yourself," and then when you have more control over "yourself" you then attempt to use that control to force yourself to let go of something.
And you might want to re-evaluate how you view control. Marcus Aurelius did not write "Meditations" and force hardships upon himself for fun and monks in Burma do not spend hours a day meditating on bare subsistence because they have nothing better to do. It isn't about absolute force, the key word is control. When I did karate we used "control" when we sparred, the meaning was very different from hitting the other guy as hard as you could. It meant hitting him with just enough force that he felt and knew you could deliver more, so that he knew his block or technique needed work. Sparring against a novice was always most dangerous because they lacked any control. And so it was that even though I could punch and kick vastly harder then a beginner, I could also be much more gentle, to the point they wouldn't even realize they were touched. Control is about mastery, and while you may never truly master yourself (a destination you should not desire to reach because you may never arrive), the path is what is important, at least that is what I believe.
Indifference to me is letting go or not trying to control those things that are not up to me. This does not mean letting go of those things which are within in my power or seeking to know the difference between the two. It is just like that old prayer really.
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