This is a linkpost for https://honestliving.substack.com/p/sapir-whorf-ego-death
Meditation can be tricky. I’m by no means a skilled practitioner, but I did make a fair bit of progress with my focus meditation recently. This post is about the realization that helped me up my meditation game. Enjoy!
When I meditate, I often spin away into reflections and judgments about how the meditation is going.
“I should focus on the breath.”
“It’s going quite well—oh wait, I should not make this into a performance—damn, I got stuck thinking about how I meditate. I should focus back on the breath—wait, reflecting on how I reflect is not the same as focusing on the breath, damn it—[…]”
Some time ago, I realized that the perspective "I want to focus on the breath" is self-defeating. It uses a third-person perspective that includes me as an object of evaluation—no wonder I spin off into reflection. I want to let go of self-evaluation, yet my very mindset starts with an “I.”
A More Helpful Intention
The problem with "I should focus on the breath" is that it assumes a self who is monitoring, evaluating, striving. Realizing this, I started framing my practice differently. Instead of directing myself to focus, I tried a perspective that didn’t include a self at all:
"Sensations of breath are arising."
This simple shift changed the texture of my meditation. Instead of a little homunculus in my mind trying to herd attention back to the breath, there was just the breath. No watcher, no judger, just sensation appearing.
Note: When trying this at home, you might mistakenly adopt the mindset "I should think 'sensations of breath are arising.'"—your brain habitually sneaking a self into the way you view things. Resist this impulse, and stick to the simple phrase "Sensations of breath are arising."
No commentary.
The Effect: Letting Go of the Observer
By letting go of this outer layer of reflection and just being with the breath, I found it much easier to meditate. The usual looping pattern—focusing, noticing I’m focusing, judging how I’m focusing—started dissolving.
Another small intervention helped, too: I stopped trying to sit like an experienced yogi. Instead, I lay down comfortably. Without the distraction of physical strain, the whole thing flowed more smoothly. At some point, I started slipping into absorption, the kind of effortless concentration that used to feel impossible.
I’m not an advanced meditator, so take this advice with a pinch of salt. But if you tend to overanalyze your meditation, this might be worth a try.
The Sapir-Whorf Connection: How Language Shapes Thought
The reason I decided to try this mindset shift is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the idea that the structure of language influences cognition. According to this hypothesis, language isn’t just a tool for expressing thoughts; it also shapes the way we think.
When I used self-referential language in framing my meditation—"I should focus on the breath"—I reinforced a mental model in which there is a separate “I” that is monitoring and correcting.
By shifting to "Sensations of breath are arising," the “I” was removed from the frame. This change in language avoided reinforcing the idea of a self who is managing the meditation, allowing for a more direct experience of the breath.
An Invitation to Experiment
If you tend to overanalyze meditation, this shift might help you step outside the loop of self-monitoring and just be with the breath. No effort, no performance—just experience unfolding.
So far, this shift has made a difference in my meditation practice. But what about the rest of life? Would a general commitment to no-self langage reduce baseline default mode network activation? I haven't tested it fully, but the idea lingers, and with it, a quiet curiosity.
I’d love to hear from others who experiment with this! If this resonates with you, give it a try and see what happens. Let me know what you discover.