Lesson 8: My Mind Is Preoccupied With Past Thoughts

Sarah

Welcome to The Daily Lesson — a podcast powered by AI and grounded in the teachings and original text of A Course in Miracles. I'm Sarah, and I'm here with Marcus, and this is Lesson 8: My Mind Is Preoccupied With Past Thoughts.

Marcus

Here. Coffee's working.

Sarah

Yesterday we landed on the idea that we see only the past. Today the Workbook tells us why — and there's a line near the end that I think is going to be your favorite of the week. Let's read the complete, uninterrupted, verbatim text of Workbook Lesson 8. "Lesson 8. My mind is preoccupied with past thoughts." "This idea is, of course, the reason why you see only the past. No one really sees anything. He sees only his thoughts projected outward. The mind's preoccupation with the past is the cause of the total misconception about time from which your seeing suffers. Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything." "The only wholly true thought one can hold about the past is that it is not here. To think about it at all is therefore to think about illusions. Very few minds have realized what is actually entailed in picturing the past or in anticipating the future. The mind is actually blank when it does this, because it is not really thinking about anything." "The purpose of the exercises for today is to begin to train your mind to recognize when it is not really thinking at all. While thoughtless 'ideas' preoccupy your mind, the truth is blocked. Recognizing that your mind has been merely blank, rather than believing that it is filled with real ideas, is the first step to opening the way to vision." "The exercises for today should be done with eyes closed. This is because you actually cannot see anything, and it is easier to recognize that no matter how vividly you may picture a thought, you are not seeing anything. With as little investment as possible, search your mind for the usual minute or so, merely noting the thoughts you find there. Name each one by the central figure or theme it contains, and pass on to the next. Introduce the practice period by saying:" "I seem to be thinking about ___." "Then name each of your thoughts specifically, for example:" "I seem to be thinking about (name of person), about (name of object), about (name of emotion), and so on," "concluding at the end of the mind-searching period with:" "But my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts." "This can be done four or five times during the day, unless you find it irritates you. If you find it trying, three or four times is sufficient. You might find it helpful, however, to include your irritation, or any emotion which the idea may induce, in the mind searching itself." —...

Marcus

I want to argue with one line in there. "The mind is actually blank when it does this." Not mistaken — blank. Yesterday I could hold onto the idea that I was at least seeing something, even if it was old. Today I'm told there was nothing there at all. —...

Sarah

Say more about why that one stings.

Marcus

Because I was on hold with a billing department for eleven minutes yesterday. Hold music, the whole thing. And I spent every one of those minutes rehearsing an argument with a person I had not yet spoken to. Building the case. Anticipating what she'd say, sharpening the reply. Someone finally picked up, it took forty seconds, she was lovely, and it was already resolved. So by this lesson's account, I wasn't thinking for eleven minutes. I was sitting there with an empty head, feeling productive.

Sarah

That's the lesson almost word for word. Notice it names both directions — picturing the past and anticipating the future — and treats them as the same activity. Your imagined argument was assembled entirely out of old material. Every line you rehearsed came from some earlier time you felt unheard by somebody with a headset on.

Marcus

So the future one is the past wearing a costume.

Sarah

That's the piece, yes. And the Text says it more bluntly than today's lesson does. Chapter 26: "And all of time is but the mad belief that what is over is still here and now. Forgive the past and let it go, for it is gone." Every line you rehearsed on that call was already over. Finished, years back, with other people, in other rooms. You were treating it as live.

Marcus

Eleven minutes defending myself against something that had already stopped happening.

Sarah

And that's what makes it a preoccupation rather than a thought. Days one through seven were about what we see. Today is about where that seeing comes from.

Marcus

Here's where I get stuck, and I'll own that it's a sticking point rather than a real objection. Calling my mind blank sounds like the Course telling me my inner life is worthless. Eleven minutes of me, deleted. —...

Sarah

I don't want to smooth that over, because I think you're hearing it accurately and it is a harsh line. Read it once more, though — the lesson doesn't say you are blank. It says the mind is blank while it's doing that one particular thing. It's describing an activity, not issuing a verdict on you. And the reason it says so at all is right there in the third paragraph: recognizing the blankness is called the first step to opening the way to vision. It's diagnostic. You can't stop doing something you don't know you're doing.

Marcus

All right. That lands better. Not comfortable, and better. —...

Marcus

Can I turn this around on you? You've heard about my dishes, my jacket, my missing package, my bicycle. I've been the exhibit every day this week.

Sarah

(laughs) That's fair.

Marcus

So where does this one catch you? ...

Sarah

... (sighs) There's a small blue glass paperweight on my desk. It came from an office I had at a university, about five years ago now. I sat down here an hour before we started recording, saw it, and I was not in this room anymore — I was in a committee meeting. I had done most of the work on something. A colleague presented it. He was good at presenting. Nobody in that room did anything wrong, exactly, and by the end the work had quietly become his. And what I did was smile, say nothing at all, and then offer to help him with the next one.

Marcus

Hm.

Sarah

Which demonstrates today's lesson perfectly, doesn't it — the paperweight is glass. Four ounces of blue glass with no committee meeting inside it. I imported all of that. So today's practice is about catching —

Marcus

You went quite fast there.

Sarah

Fast?

Marcus

From "he took the credit and I offered to help him again" to "and that demonstrates the lesson." Four seconds, give or take. You'd have let me sit in mine longer.

Sarah

(laughs quietly) I would have, wouldn't I.

Marcus

I'm not fishing. It seemed worth pointing at. —...

Sarah

It was five years ago and my chest still went tight over a piece of glass. So — noted. And that is honestly what today's practice is for, myself included. The lesson asks us to name each thought by its central figure or theme, and I think I'd been filing mine under "old work thing" for five years precisely so I would not have to look any closer than that. —...

Marcus

Then let's do it properly. What does today actually ask for? Yesterday was eyes open, glancing around the room.

Sarah

Today reverses that, and the lesson explains why, which I love. Eyes closed — and the reason given is that you actually cannot see anything, so it's easier to recognize that however vividly you picture a thought, you're not seeing anything.

Marcus

Closing your eyes to make it obvious that the pictures aren't sight.

Sarah

Yes. Then, in the lesson's own phrase, with as little investment as possible, you search your mind for the usual minute or so, merely noting the thoughts you find. Name each one by its central figure or theme, and pass on to the next.

Marcus

"As little investment as possible." That's doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Sarah

It is. You're not mining. You're noting. And there's a specific way in — you introduce the practice period by saying, "I seem to be thinking about blank." Then you name them specifically: "I seem to be thinking about name of person, about name of object, about name of emotion," and so on. At the end of the mind-searching period you conclude with: "But my mind is preoccupied with past thoughts."

Marcus

How many times a day?

Sarah

Four or five, unless you find it irritates you. If you find it trying, three or four is sufficient.

Marcus

And this is the line you promised me.

Sarah

(laughs) This is the line. "You might find it helpful, however, to include your irritation, or any emotion which the idea may induce, in the mind searching itself."

Marcus

So the exercise annoys me, and the annoyance goes in the exercise.

Sarah

The annoyance goes in the exercise.

Marcus

That's the most reasonable thing anyone has said to me all week. I'll admit the eyes-closed ones are harder for me than the eyes-open ones were. Looking at a pencil and saying I see only the past in it, that's a tidy little task. Closing my eyes and finding out what my mind has actually been doing all morning feels closer to opening someone else's mail. And now I'm told that if that makes me irritable, the irritation is simply more material.

Sarah

Which is a kinder design than it first appears. Nothing you find disqualifies you. You name it, you say the line, you move on.

Marcus

Naming without fixing. That I can attempt.

Sarah

To everyone listening — four or five quiet minutes today, eyes closed, as little investment as you can manage. Name each thought by its central figure or theme, be as unimpressed by the flattering ones as by the embarrassing ones, and if the whole thing irritates you, put the irritation in with the rest. We'll be back tomorrow with Lesson 9.

Marcus

Tomorrow, then.