Can I just say, and I'm just being honest...

[Edwardo Piet]

Back from my walk. The whole thing is making less and less sense to me the more I analyse it.

I was trying to practice it on my walk. I had thoughts/judgements that represented aspects to my life and the world that I like and thoughts/judgements that represented aspects to my life and the world I dislike. Those were my positive and negative thoughts respectively. As we know it's impossible to choose what we believe, we're either convinced by something or not, it's not volitional. If you dislike a puddle and it reminds you of other things you dislike about your day and your life and you have reasons for having those judgements and beliefs about your day and your life you'll still feel crappy about it whether you say or think "this is crappy" or not. How you react to it won't change how you feel about the judgements you genuinely believe for reasons you are convinced by.

At this point I feel like... what does observing my negative judgements acheive besides being aware of the fact that I believe something in my life or the world is undesirable? We can't take a neutral attitude towards things we genuinely dislike for reasons. Of course, we can view things as not "good" or "bad" objectively, but we already do that because as atheists we know there is no absolute "good" or "bad". Our thoughts aren't objectively "good" or "bad" but our thoughts are judgements regarding stuff we genuinely feel good or bad about for valid reasons. If a friend or family member dies and I have thoughts about how sad and awful it is... whether I observe those thoughts or not won't affect the fact that I genuinely feel awful about it for reasons. I understand that's an extreme case but make the experience slightly less bad. Let's say someone dies who we care about who isn't a close friend or family. The fact we feel slightly less bad about it than the person were closer to us doesn't change the reality that we still feel bad about it for reasons, that's our negative judgement--a judgement about something negative that has happened--and how we react to it won't change how it feels. Now make the example something less bad than that. And then less bad than that and so on until you get an example that is something extremely mildly bad happening in our life like coming across a puddle. I don't see how it changes. Reacting with additional negative thoughts will be additionally negative, yes, but not doing so will still not change the fact we deem the puddle to be mildly bad and we dislike its presence. If we didn't dislike it we wouldn't feel bad about it. If it stops bothering us then we temporarily no longer feel bad about it.

We can become aware of our genuine negative judgements about things we genuinely dislike but I don't see how being aware of them lessens them at all. I don't see how it stops me getting carried away in negative thinking merely to observe it going on. I can quite easily watch myself get carried away and be fully aware there's nothing I can do to stop myself from thinking negative things that I think are negative for valid reasons--they're aspects to my life and the world I dislike.

I think this is where you are getting hung up. It is not the opposite of mindfulness. Mindlessness would be, by definition, the opposite. Consciously thinking, "That leaf is green." is mindfulness. Consciously thinking, "I just had a thought." is mindfulness. I don't know where you got this idea that mindfulness means not thinking on purpose, but it's wrong.

Well my point is that all we have to do is be conscious of our automatic thoughts. We don't need to think any additional conscious thoughts. Being mindful/conscious of automatic thoughts is enough.

"Conscious" can also mean deliberate or intentional. When we say we made a conscious choice we don't just mean we were aware of a choice we made... we mean we made the choice deliberately and intentionally.

No way, Jose. You're making it harder than it is. Try less.

I'm saying there's no point trying at all. Observing our positive and negative judgements doesn't change them.

We can and do sometimes catch ourselves on a negative train of thought. We can learn to dwell less on negative things. I don't think being mindful of our thoughts has anything to do with that. As soon as we realize we are on a negative train of thought we don't need to be mindful of them. We can't choose when we realize it or when it occurs to us to observe our thoughts, that's the thing.

And with regards to watching our breath.... when we are watching our breath and draw our attention away from our thoughts anytime we get lost in them... isn't that being less mindful of our negative thoughts? I mean, the point is that either we're lost in thought and being mindful of those thoughts or we're lost in thought and not being mindful of those thoughts. It's only when we notice ourselves lost that we're mindful of them, the rest of the time we're lost without realizing it. If I'm aware of my breath then I'm not being mindful of how lost in thought I am... when my mind drifts from my breath onto my thoughts then I am being mindful of how lost in thought I am. But I don't see either way how it makes a difference. Either way I'm lost in thought and whether I observe it or not won't change the fact that I have negative judgements/beliefs.

I almost think it's the opposite. It's not how we react to our negative judgements that bring us pain... it's the negative judgements themselves. We may or may not react with additional negative judgements... but if we don't believe or judge anything to be negative about our lives and the world then we won't suffer. Reactions themselves are just additonal judgements. We don't get to pick or choose what we like or dislike or what we judge to be good or bad about the world and our lives.

Is not. It's just a thought. That it came automatically means it has no judgment at all. It's just there, negative or positive.

A positive thought is a thought that represents a judgement about our life or the world that we like. A negative thought is a thought that represents a judgement about our life or the world that we dislike. A neutral thought is a thought that represents a judgement about our life or world that we are indifferent to.

If there were no thoughts about things we disliked, then we wouldn't even be able to react to them with a negative judgement.

It's as if you are saying that all thoughts are neutral and we then react to them positively or negatively. But when we react to them positively or negatively that's just another thought that is either positive or negative. And we can have positive or negative thoughts that aren't about other thoughts.

Obviously there are no objectively good or bad thoughts but none of us think that anyway. We know there's nothing ultimately absolutely good or bad. The point is that in our lives there are things we like and things we dislike. There are things that bring us pain and things that bring us pleasure. That's what we deem to be "good" and "bad" to us subjecively. Thoughts about the good things are what we call good thoughts and thoughts about the bad things are what we call bad thoughts.

If I'm afraid of something and I'm thinking about what I'm afraid of... telling myself that the thought isn't "bad" isn't going to make the thought any less scary.

Thoughts themselves can of course be negative judgements otherwise they wouldn't ever bother us in the first place.

Mindfulness isn't trying to change your thought from negative to positive or even negative to neutral. You're hung up on these ideas that have nothing to do with the practice.

Thoughts are either neutral, positive or negative. Our thoughts are either about things we deem to be good, bad or indifferent. I don't see how observing them changes that.

You brought up being aware of your judgments. If you don't want to be aware of them, then don't be. Pay attention to the way the floor feels beneath your butt or the feeling of your breath coming in and out of your body instead.

Sure. But again it's the same problem: being aware/mindful of that experience won't change whether it's a good or bad experience.

That's a little derisive. Just because you haven't figured it out (or have attributed too many things to mindfulness that aren't mindfulness) doesn't mean that people haven't had success with it.

I'm not convinced that it does anything. I haven't attributed anything to mindfulness other than mindfulness. I know what mindfulness proper is... but many people give me their own interpretations and explanations for how they themselves come to understand it.

Mindfulness is about being aware or mindful or our internal and/or external experiences. I just don't see how observing our thoughts can change the impact they have on us.

Lots of people believe prayer is effective too. You can think I'm being derisive but the more I've tried to practice it--and I spent years being very aware and mindful of my thoughts--the more I feel that it doesn't actually do anything.

I have experiences internal or external that make me feel good or bad. I don't see how being mindful/aware of them helps.

It does have an effect, if you learn not to react to it. If you think having judgments makes it a failure, you'll never get anywhere. If you think it's an "illusion," then you obviously haven't gotten anywhere with it.

Lol. But if it's an illusion then the people who think they have gotten far with it actually haven't.

The point is that I'm very good at being mindful and after years of being mindful I have felt like if anything it caused me more suffering. Being aware of my thoughts made me feel self-conscious. I'm not sure it's even possible to have a completely neutral thought because if we even had so-called neutral thoughts all the time they would bore the crap out of us and make us feel empty. It would feel more like a lack of good judgement than an absence of any judgement.

It's not some complicated thing. It's simply paying attention in a different way.

I don't know what people think they're actually doing when they're being mindful. I mean, does being conscious of something actually do anything at all? Sometimes I feel like consciousness itself is an epiphenomenon. It's an effect that has no effects. I could be a philosophical zombie and merely be behaving like I'm conscious, from your perspective. Now of course I know I'm conscious because I experience my consciousness. My conscious allows me to experience good and bad feelings.... but being aware of those good and bad feelings is just being aware of them and feeling them. I don't see how being aware of an apparently neutral thought would allow me to withhold judgement when the only way a thought could cause me suffering was if I was aware of a thought that was negative. Neutral thoughts can't cause us pain otherwise they wouldn't be neutral thoughts. A thought that mistakenly judges a neutral thought to be negative when it isn't is itself a negative thought that we're aware of.

Surely we'd experience less pain from our thoughts if we were less aware of them? We can't feel what we're not conscious of. I feel like self-consciousness causes us a lot of anxiety and being less mindful and more distracted is the one thing that has helped me get out of my depression. I can safely say I was far more mindful of my thoughts when I was at my most depressed for many years. It's not paying attention to them and ignoring them and distracting myself with other things that makes me feel better.

It won't cure your depression. It won't cure your anxiety. It won't make you smarter, healthier, stronger or anything like that. If that's what you seek, you're already "doing it wrong." You're attached to having it make you feel better. Try reading Buddha's Brain. It's about the neuroscience behind mindfulness meditation. It's a good read.

I've read many mindfulness books, done mindfulness courses, known many people who were passionate about it. Practiced it for years. I know exactly what it is. It is indeed nothing complicated. I just feel like if anything I need to be less mindful. Being aware and mindful of my thoughts only makes me dwell more. The idea that a thought is neutral until we judge it to be good or bad is simply mistaken because our thoughts themselves are judgemental by their very nature. Sure, not all of them are... but the ones that aren't judgemental can't ever become judgemental. If we react to a non-judgemental with a judgemental thought the problem is that the thought we reacted with was judgemental in its very nature. We can't choose to make that thought non-judgemental. A judgemental thought is a belief.

Sure, it's wrong to judge thoughts as objectively "good" or "bad" but who even does that? Thoughts are good or bad subjectively in the sense that they are about things in our life that we like or dislike/approve of or disapprove of, etc.

Thoughts are representational. A "good thought" is just at thought that represents something that is good from our perspective. A "bad thought" is just a thought that represents something that is bad from our perspective. That's judgemental in its very nature. Purely neutral thoughts that are either nonsensical or about things that we are indifferent to are irrelevant and harmless anyway.

It's literally impossible to not be mindful. We're always mindful of/aware of something. Whether it's our experience of the world or our experience of our thoughts. I understand mindfulness is about training ourselves so we stay mindful of what we want to be mindful of, whether it's our thoughts, our breathing, our feelings, what we're doing or whatever... but I don't see how that's possible. We're always paying attention to what we want to pay attention to otherwise we wouldn't be paying attention to it. If we want to practice being mindful of one particular thing then sure we can train our mind to drift less by, say, focusing on following our  breath and drawing our attention back to it when our mind drifts. But I think developing this habit isn't necessarily a good thing. Why would I want to be in the habit of having a mind that drifts less? I feel like getting carried away by our train of thought brings at least as much good as bad. If I was in the habit of stopping my mind from drifting then I'd get less carried about by excitement, by being in love, by music, by all the things I enjoy getting gripped by. I don't really want to stop to realize I am here experiencing my thoughts and my experience because it often ruins the experience and the thoughts. If mindfulness can stop a negative train of thought it can stop a positive train of thought too. Getting carried away is awesome.

The problem is it seems more like a habit than a skill. We can strengthen the mental habit of our mind drifting less but we can also strengthen the mental habit of our mind drifting more. Daydreaming can be awesome, getting lost in thought can be awesome, getting carried away in the experience rather than stopping to be mindful of it can be awesome. I understand that we can also have daynightmares and we can get lost in negative thought and we can get carried away in a negative experience and those times it would be helpful to stop and be mindful. But we do already do that to an extent... and overall I'd say that being more mindful and self-aware increases self-consciousness which makes us feel anxious. Overall I'd rather be on the slightly less mindful side, I think. The more I distract myself from my mind the better I feel unless I really start to worry about something. Then I can stop and be mindful for a second but then after that I really just want to get lost in enjoying the moment again. I don't want to continue to be mindful once I've stopped my negative train.

I feel like anxiety by its very nature is very self-conscious and mindful.

Let me break it down for you. You can't control automatic thoughts, but not all of your thoughts are automatic. You can learn to redirect your thoughts. It doesn't work all the time because people aren't perfect.

Well.. I don't think people realize what is actually happening. Ultimately all our thoughts are automatic. We can't choose our thoughts. They just happen and they just occur to us. By an automatic thought I mean one that isn't intentional.

Our intentional thoughts, they still just happen to us but we experience them as thoughts that we are attempting to think. They're still automatically caused by unconscious sources so we don't get to pick them. But sure, I understand that we experience them as being different, even if it's an illusion.

Anyways, these thoughts that we experience as having chosen. They are thoughts that by their very nature we are certainly observing. Automatic thoughts may or may not be observed. When we observe them it's like... it's like when our intentional non-automatic thought pops in and we realize after the fact that our automatic thought had happened without us intending them to, and it had made us feel crappy.

Learn to redirect our thoughts...? We are our thoughts. They just happen to us. Either we're thinking about our external experience or we're thinking about or internal experience: i.e. about other thoughts

There is no seperation between the experience and the experiencer, that's the thing. The thought that I am thinking is the same "I" that is thinking.

Our thoughts either do or don't get redirected. There is no "we" that is apart from that that redirects or doesn't redirect our thoughts. Thoughts just come and go. Sure we can get in the habit of getting less lost in thought and our thoughts coming back to the same train rather than jumping on all sorts of different trains more often, we can learn the habit of drifting less. But this "we" that learns that is the train of thought itself learning to stay on the same train. And I don't know why we'd want to do that... and if the train is making us suffer I don't see how observing it will help and in fact drifting away from a train that hurts us might be a good thing... and surely to stop it from making us suffer we'd have to not experience it and not be mindful of it?

You're right. You can't control everything you think. Mindfulness doesn't attempt to do that.

I don't think anyone can control anything they think. We can observe thoughts and we can take credit for our thoughts and tell ourselves we chose them or controlled them when we didn't.

I don't see how observing them or being aware of them helps. Thoughts either make us feel nothing or they make us feel something good or bad. You seem to have been saying that all thoughts are neutral and then we make a judgement. But that judgement itself is a thought. Some thoughts are judgemental and some are non-judgemental. We don't get to choose whether we react to non-judgemental thoughts with judgemental ones or not. That's the point. If I have a non-judgemental purely neutral thought I may or may nor react with another thought that either is or isn't judgemental.

Sure, if we're reacting to a neutral thought with the judgement that it's non-neutral, and that it is objectively "good" or "bad" then we're deluded. But who even does that?

Thoughts are either about things we feel are good or things we feel are bad.... or they're indeed neutral. The same applies to the thoughts we react to them with.

We can have good and bad thoughts that aren't about thoughts at all. I don't think it's about how we react to neutral thoughts with positive or negative judgements at all. I think it's about how we have thoughts that are judgements about our life and the world we live in.... they're thoughts that represent genuine beliefs we have about things we deem wanted or unwanted. Things that bother us or don't bother us.

Sure, if we have a belief about something awful. The thought "this is awful" is not itself good or bad... but what it represents is good or bad to us. It's about the thing we deem to be awful. Who would think that the thought itself was good or bad in any way besides it representing something in our life or the world that we personally deem to be awful? If I told myself "no it isn't awful, it's neither good nor bad, it's just a thought." I'd probably get another thought like "Sure, the thought "this is awful" is just a thought and neither good nor bad but it's indeed a thought about something that I think is fucking awful. A cat just got run over and that's awful [for example] the thought "this is awful" represents something true as far as I'm concerned. It is true that to me it is indeed awful that cat just got run over. This is a negative thought, this is a negative judgement. The thought "this is awful" is a thought about something negative. A negative thought. It certainly isn't neutral. Yes the thought itself isn't bad in the sense of there being anything wrong with it. But it certainly is negative in the sense of representing something negative."

So yeah, that's the way it is. I don't know why anyone would think thoughts themselves are good or bad besides them being about things that are good or bad to us. Thoughts often express preferences. The judgemental thought "this is bad" means the same as the preferential thought "I don't like this". It's about something we personally consider negative. We may or may not react with another judgemental thought: "Yes this is really bad", "I really don't like this", but whether we do or don't won't change the fact that we genuinely think that the thing we are thinking about is bad from our perspective/we would rather it wasn't happening.

Thoughts either are or aren't judgemental and preferential and we either do or don't react to them with other thoughts that are judgemental and preferential. From our own perspective we genuinely do judge things to be truly "bad" or undesirable... I don't see how we observe or react to our own personal truths makes a difference.

I don't think I'm making this complicated: I think I'm struggling to explain how it's even more simple than most people think. Thoughts just happen and there is no 'us' that thinks those thoughts. The experience and the experiencer are one. The self is an illusion. Thoughts just come and go and we not only can't control our thoughts but we are the thoughts that we can't control. There is no 'us' to step back from 'our thoughts' non-judgementally because there is no separation between the two. We, as our conscious selves, are our thoughts that are judgemental and also our thoughts that are non-judgemental. When I say the self is an illusion I mean that there is no distinct self from our thoughts or experiences. The thinker is the thoughts and the experiencer is the experience.

But those thoughts themselves are judgements. When I appear to be observing the judgements without judgement that's just me changing from observing an internal or external experience judgementally to observing an internal or external experience non-judgementally.

Yeah. Do that.

It's not really a choice. Either I have judgements when I observe an experience or I don't. If I have judgements I can't pretend to not have them. If something I'd rather didn't happen happens... I'm going to judge it that way whether I like it or not. If something I am glad happened happens I'm going to judge it that way whether I like it or not. We have reasons for our beliefs/judgements. There isn't really a separation between our experience and its judgemental/non-judgemental nature. I can experience something in my mind or in the world and that experience can contain a judgement or not. I can deem it desirable, undesirable or neither. When I observe an experience my judgements happen as automatically as any other conscious process.

That's not the point. People who practice mindfulness know that it won't prevent negative thoughts.

But this includes negative reactions to negative thoughts because those too are negative thoughts.

When we observe a thought the thought we are observing is either judgemental or non-judgemental. The only thoughts we can observe non-judgementally are thoughts that are already non-judgemental in nature. And the thought process we are using to observe it is also either judgemental or non-judgemental in nature. Either our thoughts are about things we judge to be good or bad or they're not.

You're focusing way too much on thoughts. A common mindfulness practice is paying attention to the sensations when you're eating. Another is to hold an ice cube. No one is trying to analyze their thoughts and pay a ton of attention to them. The idea is to kind of wave at them mentally as they go by.

Yeah. But I mean... they're still there whether we pay attention to them or not. We're always mindful of something. The more mindful we are of our external experience the less mindful we are of our internal experience.

It seems to me that mindfulness that is about observing our sensations rather than our thoughts is about being less mindful of our thoughts. That is something I can get on board with. I think the less we are aware of our thoughts and the more we are aware of our experiences the more we enjoy life.

I don't understand the waving at our thoughts as we go by part. Either they bother us or they don't. We can't tell ourselves "it's just a thought" if the thought is about something we're genuinely worried about. And we can't tell ourselves "it's just a thought" if the thought is about something we're genuinely excited about. Sure the thought itself is 'just a thought' in the sense of it itself is not something to feel good or bad about. But the point is that the thought is about something real and so.... in that sense it isn't 'just' a thought.

Like... think of, for example, a thought that pops into our head reminding us of something really important that we have to do. That thought is a positive thought in the sense that it benefits us because it's a good thing that we remembered.

Now think of a thought that pops into our head reminding us of something we'd rather not remember. Like a flashback to something awful. That thought is a bad thought in the sense that it reminds us of something that happened that we feel bad about. Sure, the thought itself isn't itself bad but the thing that happened that we feel awful about really was bad at the time. It was something we would rather have not experienced.

Now, the thought may indeed be about something entirely in the past so in that sense it's 'just a thought' in the sense it has no current reality besides a memory that makes us feel bad. But sometimes thoughts about the past are helpful because they remind us to avoid similar situations in the future. You know, like, regret has a purpose. It's useful insofar it helps us avoid similar situations in the future. Thoughts have purposes. Thoughts aren't 'just' thoughts in the sense they're not just pictures and sentences in our heads.... they actually represent something that we genuinely believe happened, is happening or will happen and we may genuinely judge that thing to be good or bad or wanted or unwanted. I don't think the 'it's just a thought' thing is very useful because thoughts have personal meanings to us by our very nature. If the purpose behind the thought "is just a thought" is to remind us that the thought is about something that is no longer relevant to us or to remind us to stop dwelling or to focus back on the present moment then sure, fine, that makes sense. But thoughts really are often about real things that have meaning to us. And when we have a thought we genuinely have reasons to judge something as good or bad or wanted or unwanted. I don't think we can escape from the judgemental nature of many thoughts... and in fact, I think when we recognize a judgemental thought I think that the best way to not dwell on it too much is ironically to be less mindful of it and instead be more mindful of other more positive thoughts or our current experience in the moment.

Or sometimes you have a negative response and you don't get caught up in it because you've learned not to.

Yeah. It's bad to get carried away in a negative train of thought.  That is why I try not to be mindful of my negative trains of thought, lol.

I'd rather be mindful of my positive trains. Hard though because we don't get to pick the trains. I think focusing on our experience and ignoring our thoughts is usually the best way to avoid being overly mindful/aware of our negative thoughts. Lol.

I think the problem is... the only way we can experience a negative train of thought is by being mindful of it. By observing it.

It's important that you be diagnosed before you attribute things to compulsions. If I remember correctly, you haven't been formally diagnosed. A ton of depression and general anxiety symptoms mimic OCD.

Oh I just say O.C.D. because informally lots of people say that to mean the symptoms. My psych refused to diagnose me either way because he didn't like labelling and he preferred to focus on symptoms and treatment than diagnosis. He put me on meds for the symptoms of O.C.D.

I've been trying to talk about my O.C., meaing, my obsessive compulsiveness, regardless of whether I have the disorder. But many people don't know what I mean when I say O.C. and to say "symptoms of O.C.D. without necessarily having the disorder" all the time is a pain in the ass.

Personally I think I probably don't have O.C.D. I think my obsessive compulsiveness is probably Aspergers Syndrome. A neuropsychologist who assessed me and my psychiatrist and others who have known me think I might have it.

I'm currently on the waiting list to get a diagnosis of A.S. that will be a positive or negative result. Either way it's a result. I was told I couldn't have normal CBT until I got a result on this because standard CBT doesn't work for AS and I'd need a more specialized version. That may also explain why I had 18 sessions of CBT (and mindfulness alongside it I might add) before and it didn't help me at all.

Whether it's obsessive compuslive disorder per se, my obsessive compulsiveness is very real.

My GP recently said that whether there's a label or not for my mental health problems, they're still very real.

 

The right medication could certainly work far more than mindfulness. Again, just because it doesn't work for you doesn't mean that it doesn't actually work for other people. Dismissing it as hokum because you haven't figured it out isn't fair.

I'm not saying it doesn't work for people I'm saying that it might be the placebo effect. I'm certainly glad that people think it works for them if it makes them feel better and cope with their anxiety. Rather than being unfair what I'm doing is expressing my judgements regarding mindfulness. I don't see how observing thoughts or experiences/being mindful of them changes the reality of their judgemental nature.

I think that if it really worked it would work for me too. Many people react by telling me that I can't be doing it right if it's not working for me.... but I don't think that's the case at all. In fact I think I'm a lot more skilled at being mindful than many people who claim it benefits them. I've practiced it for years and concluded that I'm actuallly happier when I'm less aware and less mindful. I'm not sure what people think they're doing when they think they're benefiting from it. I think it's a case of people taking credit for their thought processes without realizing that they
are their thought processes.  I think the whole thing is rather based on a common misunderstanding of conscious experience.

Look at it this way: imagine if the deeper you get into mindfulness the more you realize that you're not actually doing anything and your thoughts simply happen to you and that includes the judgements you make... and in fact you, as a conscious self, simply are the thoughts and judgements and experiences that are happening.

Try being more aware of a puppy or something. It's less complicated.

Hehe. How could I not be aware of a puppy when one's there? Hard to be mindful of my thoughts when an adorable puppy is in the room.

You're describing mindfulness, I think. Getting carried away in the moment is mindfulness. Not getting lost in your thoughts is mindfulness. Mindfulness isn't observing the shit out of your thoughts. It's being in the here and now without time traveling mentally and only acknowledging thoughts a bit as they float by.

Wait... isn't that just normal conscious experience? Lol.

I'm usually too busy loving or hating the moment to know what I'm thinking about. I think that even when the moment feels like crap it's often better to experience it than observe my negative thoughts about it.

Every time you talk about mindfulness, it sounds like compulsive worrying and analyzing thoughts. I don't know how you came to believe that mindfulness was engaging with your thoughts, but it ain't!  

No the point is whether we engage or not we don't have a choice. If I have a thought that engages with my thoughts then I can observe that thought or I can engage that thought with another thought. I tend to never engage my thoughts. They just happen. But usually I don't observe them either because thoughts are boring as fuck compared to reality. I just observe my experience in the world.

I think "happiness comes from within" is either bullshit or trivially true. It's bullshit in the sense that we get happiness from our experience in the present moment outside of our thoughts, mostly. And it's trivally true in the sense there isn't really any 'out there' that we can experience. Even if I am never aware of my thoughts I'm consciouslly aware of my own experience of the world. I can never know the world itself. Ultimately all the happiness I get is from my own mind's experience of the world rather than the world itself. Happiness is 'out there' as much as it is 'in here' because there isn't really any 'out there'. I can point to something that seems to make me happy -- like, I can literally point to an adorable puppy-- and from my own experience that isn't a thing that really 'makes me happy', my experience of it itself is happiness--my experience of the puppy is my happiness in that moment-- Good experiences are literally tied together with happy emotions. Nothing has inspired me more than realizing that it's more parsimonious to never separate my inner emotions from my outer experiences. Happiness and unhappiness are in my world as much as my life.

Try checking out some texts about radical acceptance. It might help you.

Perhaps the problem is I'm trying to figure out how to be anything but mindful.

---

Now, choiceless awareness, this is something I'm very much open to:

Choiceless awareness is posited in philosophy, psychology, and spirituality to be the state of unpremeditated, complete awareness of the present without preference, effort, or compulsion. The term was popularized in mid-20th century by Jiddu Krishnamurti, in whose philosophy it signifies a main theme. Similar or related concepts had been previously developed in several religious or spiritual traditions; the term or others like it has also been used to describe traditional and contemporary secular and religious meditation practices. By early 21st century, choiceless awareness as a concept or term had appeared in a variety of fields, including in neuroscience, therapy, sociology, and in art. However, Krishnamurti's approach of the subject was unique, and differs from both prior and later notions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choiceless_awareness

If it wasn't for my compulsions and mental rules I'd be like this all the time. In fact maybe my goal should be to reach this state more often.