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Welcome to the Imperfect Buddhist, where we discuss mindfulness and incorporating Zen principles into modern life. My name is Matthew Hawk Mahoney and today's episode is titled, Buddhism and Intrusive Thoughts.

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It really doesn't surprise me that I was drawn to Zen Buddhism. And this is an important episode for me because as some of the most listened imperfect Buddhists out there might know, I've struggled with intrusive thoughts or impulsive thoughts for about the last 14 years. And it really was probably the reason I got into meditation at all. The message of Zen Buddhism that we aren't our thoughts.

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that we are the awareness around and experiencing our thoughts was very helpful to me in those early days and still is. To be able to see our minds as passing clouds, we practice what's known in Buddhism or even now some hippie culture, something called mindfulness. Mindfulness is the deliberate turning of our attention to the present moment and whatever we are doing in that moment.

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Mindfulness can be emboldened and strengthened through a practice known as Zazen, which is meditation in Zen Buddhism. We do these practices to help us be mindful in our daily lives. And intrusive thoughts or impulsive thoughts, they happen in our daily life while we're feeding the cat or driving the car. Before we delve deeper into the topic of intrusive thoughts and

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Buddhist philosophy. I want to take a moment to understand a little bit more about what these terms mean and how they impact people's lives. Intrusive thoughts can be described as reoccurring, unwanted, or usually distressing thoughts, images or urges that pop into your mind. They're usually intrusive, hence the name, in nature, and they appear and disrupt

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well-being. Some people would say that impulsive thoughts are more characterized by sudden urges or impulses to act and usually without consideration for the outcome and these impulses can arise seemingly out of nowhere. They compel people to engage in certain behaviors and as the name suggests, they're hasty or impulsive. In my practice, I've dealt more with intrusive thoughts than impulsive thoughts.

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Intrusive thoughts and impulsive thoughts can create intense anxiety, turmoil, and they can create a feeling of being out of control. If we don't have a way to deal with them or work on them and they're left unchecked, of course it's going to affect our relationships, our work, and overall quality of life. Throughout this episode, we're going to explore practical approaches to working with one's intrusive thoughts. And I'm going to share some of my personal experiences of

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the start of these intrusive thoughts along with some of the success that I've had along the way.

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Zen Buddhism is a storehouse of antidote for this type of affliction, namely intrusive thoughts and impulsive thoughts. Shunryo Suzuki said that to follow the path of Zen is to realize that your thoughts come and go of their own accord. You need not serve them tea. And in Buddhism there's this character known as Mara. Mara is the affliction of the world, suffering.

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and essential what he's saying is that Mara may come into your house. As long as you don't serve Mara tea, he won't stick or she won't stick around. Dogen Zenji said, in the landscape of silence, thoughts appear like passing clouds. They come and go, but the sky remains unchanged. How does one develop a state of being where the last little quotes I read

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become something that one experiences. One can begin to experience their own thoughts and emotions through the practice of mindfulness, through the practice of developing present moment awareness. And so hence we have the importance of mindfulness in one's daily life. Zen Buddhism offers various practices for cultivating awareness so that when that image pops into one's mind.

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eventually you can see it as phenomenon. You can see it as static electricity, if you will, the phenomenon of life.

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I personally deal with intrusive thoughts, intrusive images. The first time it had a significant impact on my emotional health and mental well-being was when I was staying with my sister and her husband and a couple roommates up in Portland, Oregon. My nephew was about a year old at that time. I remember we were sitting in the living room and there was imagery of

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me doing something to hurt him, I don't remember specifically what it was, or maybe like this underlying fear that somehow that could be something that I would do, and it set off this chain of events. At that point I was not acquainted with any type of meditative training or Buddhist practice. I had no grounding in mindfulness. I was fully identified with my mind and actually to strengthen the

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The trouble here was I was very into the whole idea of manifestation of the secret, which if you're not familiar with it, it pretty much means thoughts are things and when we think about something or we hope for something, we really can imagine that it's real, it will manifest itself in our life. So on top of having these fears and compulsive images and worries, I'm now thinking, uh oh, I'm creating it. Like this is gonna, this is gonna happen. Oh, I can't think that. This whole.

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back and forth mental struggle. I had no grounding in it. Of course the wheels kept going and I was pushing it away and acting like it wasn't real and then arguing with myself. That was really a hard place to be. The anxiety got worse and worse. The depression sets in because I'm so anxious. People are like, why aren't you talking? I would have this internal dialogue that's going a million miles a minute. I'm ashamed, so I can't tell anybody what's going on. I can't tell my father or my mom or...

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my best friend or my girlfriend. What would they think if they knew that these images were popping into my mind? Would they also think that I was going down this path of becoming a murderer?

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So what arose out of that experience was a deep need for refuge in a place of safety and healing, but I didn't know how or what or when that would happen.

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What does Buddhism have to say about intrusive thoughts? What can it offer when it comes to the affliction of intrusive thinking? In Buddhism, there's an emphasis on non-attachment. Non-attachment goes further than our own thoughts and emotions. It also plays a part in how we interact with the world and ourselves as a whole. But nonetheless, it still pertains to our thoughts. And becoming non-attached means that we don't

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Place any identity in our own thoughts. It means that we don't place any identity in the images that pop into our minds. This means that we don't have a sense of self there. So the image of dropping the heavy bag of cat food onto my cat, there's no sense of self there. We see it as a flash in the pan as a phenomenon. Just like we might see a shooting star across the night sky, we have this sense of non-attachment.

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We can see potentially the causes and conditions that led to the imagery or the thought, and we can let go of any dialogue that goes too far into identifying with these intrusive thoughts.

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Sometimes with intrusive thinking, it can really fuck with our internal dialogue because I'm a good person. I am not supposed to have images or thoughts like this that pop into my head. Non-attachment, non-self allows us to become fluid as beings on this planet, that we are allowed to experience the phenomenon of life, thoughts, emotions, experiences without placing ourself in them.

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That's a little bit of the catch-22 with Zen practice. Not only do we let go of identification with the negative thoughts or so-and-so quote negative thoughts, what we label as such, but we also let go of our positive versions of ourselves. The good teacher, the kind mother, the famous musician, the infamous Karen, the poor grocery store worker, the rich real estate agent.

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The creative younger brother. We let go of all these identities along with the impulsive thoughts, intrusive thoughts. We no longer identify with any of them as who we truly are.

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The best technique for working with intrusive thoughts is having a regular meditation practice. It helps to enter your day with the intention of awareness. Without a regular meditation or zazen practice in the mornings, you can bring mindfulness and the intention of mindfulness. But in my own experience, in many practitioners' experiences, having a practice in the morning set aside specifically for cultivating awareness.

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makes the effort of mindful awareness during your day much easier. Having that mindful awareness will serve you in helping to alleviate the karmic wheel of intrusive thinking in your mind. God, do I know how cheesy that sounds, but the wheel of thought in your mind, if you want to put it that way. A little bit of how we can apply this in practice, in applying Zen principles to this. If we start our day with awareness through a

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meditation or zazen practice, whether that's five, ten, or 20 minutes in the mornings. We start out on the right foot. When we're working and all of a sudden an image or fear of an image coming up, because sometimes I know how it goes, you're afraid that you might have that image. See if you can step into that witnessing presence of what's arising and see if you can sense the emotion in your body. Tap into the emotion.

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Sometimes grounding your awareness in the feeling in your body can really help ground that experience because then you're not feeding into the mind. And it's good because usually the emotion is strong. That feeling of fear, disgust, embarrassment, it's going to be pretty pertinent. It's going to be pretty there. So it's a good thing to tap into. Be cautious of witnessing that and letting it turn back into thinking in your mind. Bring that witnessing presence.

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The same thing that you develop in zazen, when you're witnessing that breath, there's no judgment of the sensation of breathing. It's just a witnessing of the inhale and the exhale, out-heel. And you can just bring that same awareness to the emotion. You're not judging it good, not judging it bad. It's simply an emotion. And the thought is simply a thought. The thought image is simply an image. And we can detach.

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from our judgment. Maybe on a particular rough day where these intrusive thoughts are really just coming in strong and you feel bombarded by them. Then along with our morning meditation, it may be good for you to do an evening or afternoon meditation. Maybe on your lunch break, you can go for a walk, see if you can start by becoming aware of the sounds around you.

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as your mind starts turning and the worries there, witness that worry, that fear, and then see if you can turn your attention to the sounds around you, the wind in the trees, the birds, see if you can tune into the sounds around you, and then see if you can tune into the sensations of the physical body of walking, your feet touching the ground.

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you

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Another part of this, and I think another reason for my own affliction early on was a lack of self-care. Poor diet, no exercise, smoking cigarettes, stressed at my job, and no at that point real spiritual practice. And so there is an importance of taking care of our own bodies and minds, caring for ourselves. Something comes out of that caring for ourselves that maybe these impulsive or intrusive thoughts, if they're violent or harmful to others.

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When we care for ourselves, we subconsciously show ourselves, wow, like I'm worthy of being cared for. It does something to build up a little bit of that self-confidence and self-assuredness that our intentions are good. And not only that, but exercising and working out, which I have not been doing a very good job of lately. It releases all sorts of positive chemicals in the mind that can help us get out of that state of fear, panic, and pain.

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So caring for yourself and paying attention to your diet. The key takeaways here with almost any Zen Buddhist podcast, Dharma talk or Buddhist talk, it all comes back to cultivating present moment awareness, disidentifying with the thinking mind and finding our true home and identity in the presence that we are. If you're early on the path, keep going.

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If you're in the middle of the path, keep going. And if you're at the end, keep going. Once you really start this journey, there is no other option. If you are experiencing intrusive or impulsive thoughts, I know it's hard and I want you to know that you're not alone. Now there's a lot of people that experience this. People don't usually talk about it, but I can tell you for sure, I've dealt with it and deal with it. So know that you're not alone and don't be afraid to seek professional help if you feel like you need it.

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because we don't have all the answers and we can't always heal ourselves. I've sought counseling and treatment at different times, sometimes related to this and sometimes related to other things.

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you

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Thank you so much for hanging out with me and talking about some serious ass topics. Maybe one of the next episodes I'll do will be a little bit more lighthearted, but thank you for being here. And if you got anything out of this episode or any previous episode, please subscribe to the podcast. It does a lot to help me connect with other people. Spotify, for instance, when you subscribe, it just sends this little...

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to the Spotify gods and they're like, oh, Matt, at the Imperfect Buddhist, he's doing something right. I'll show more people this stuff. And you know, if you could even leave a review. I appreciate it and it really helps me reach more people. I'm not asking for money at this point, I just want stars. And I'll talk to you next week. All right, bye.

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