Imagine if for the next twenty-four hours you had to wear a cap that amplified your thoughts so that everyone within a hundred yards of you could hear every thought that passed through your head. Imagine if the mind were broadcast so that all about you could overhear your thoughts and fantasies, your dreams and fears. How embarrassed or fearful would you be to go outside? How long would you let your fear of the mind continue to isolate you from the hearts of others? And though this experiment sounds like one which few might care to participate in, imagine how freeing it would be at last to have nothing to hide. And how miraculous it would be to see that all others’ minds too were filled with the same confusion and fantasies, the same insecurity and doubt. How long would it take the judgmental mind to begin to release its grasp, to see through the illusion of separateness, to recognize with some humor the craziness of all beings’ minds, the craziness of mind itself?”
“But I think it is very useful, and indeed more accurate, to call it “the mind” instead of “my mind.”
– Stephen Levine
Stephen Levine, 75, is an American poet, author and Buddhist teacher. He was born in Albany, New York, Levine attended the University of Miami. He spent time helping the sick and dying, using meditation as a method of treatment. He is the author of several books about dying, Levine and his wife Ondrea spent one year living as if it were their last. For many years, Stephen and Ondrea have been living in near seclusion in the mountains of Northern New Mexico. They are both currently experiencing significant illness which prevents them from travelling and teaching. One of the most significant aspects of Stephen’s work and one for which he is perhaps best known, is his pioneering approach to working with the experience of grief. Over 34 years, Stephen and his wife Ondrea have counselled concentration camp survivors and their children, Vietnam War veterans as well as victims of sexual abuse. Although Stephen acknowledges that our experience of grief is perhaps at its most intense when a loved one dies, he also draws our attention to grief’s more subtle incarnations. “Our ordinary, everyday grief,” accumulates as a response to the “burdens of disappointments and disillusionment, the loss of trust and confidence that follows the increasingly less satisfactory arch of our lives”. (Source: Wiki)
Credits: Thank you Whiskey River from the Stephen Levine and Ondrea Levine’s Book titled Who Dies?. Portrait: Abdelkader Benali by Stephan Vanfleteren
Live & Learn 
I liked this. Thank you.
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Me too…thanks Sheri.
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Interesting, David. I think it’s amazing how some people have a capacity to deal with grief, or rather help others deal with grief repeatedly. I think it would be emotionally exhausting, but bless them….
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Yes Lori. Bless them. And therein why might be one reason that they moved to seclusion. It is a large burden to bear…
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Once again the chorus reminding us that our racing minds are not unique, thoughts galloping with abandon from one idea to the next; sorrow is not exclusive it visits everyone; wonder is not an individual talent, for the imagery alone of all of these minds at play and at work leaves me in awe.
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Your thoughts and words leave me in awe. And all this at 5:40am. Incredible.
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I was awake this morning. Had to counter that ‘slippage’ perception from one of my earlier comments. 🙂
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:).
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Excellent post. Thank you!
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Thanks.
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Very good.
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It is…
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grief has to run its course, we have to face it and not run away, it has taken me a long to learn this–thanks for the reminder
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Thank you
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We never know what is going on in someone else’s head, nor can others know what’s in ours. This, alone, can connect us.
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Yes, so true.
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Interesting idea, but I don’t think it would connect us at all. If it were a worldwide thing, it would start more wars than we already have.
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Laughing. Probably so true.
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Great! Thank you for posting! Keep it up!
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Thank you.
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I learned long ago to refer to that thought storm as The Mind, but I can’t imagine broadcasting what it produces. Maybe, though, my mental illness wouldn’t seem so precious.
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I couldn’t imagine doing so either…especially my mind and my thoughts. Scares me never mind what it would do to others. 🙂
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