Sitting. It takes real effort, but I manage to channel the frantic energy through my fingers. Legs still vibrate, primal scream just below my throat wanting a release… but I’m managing.
I need to describe this experience.
The more I learn and study, the more I unlearn falsehood and assumptions, incorrect judgments and prejudice. The massive, incorrect model I have had of the world comes crashing down.
All I am left with is a truth that is small, unobtrusive, flexible. Although my model of the world is smaller, it is more inclusive, healthy and loving, and enduring. I am unlearning limits and bounds to uncover something unlimited and beyond language.
Have you ever noticed how much you label and interpret people and events in one day? Have you ever caught yourself suggesting (even to yourself) that someone must have a certain character flaw because of how they acted in some situation?
Maybe a friend didn’t return your hello when you saw them on the street, or a cashier was unpleasant when they rang your purchase through. Maybe someone let a door close in your face when you were following them into the entrance to work.
My own internal talk used to be full of judgments and worry and anger over what other peoples’ actions, tone, or posture meant. Now I stop myself and ask “How do I know?” I don’t. I have no idea what is going with other people or what their behavior means. It doesn’t matter, either.
I don’t know, UNTIL I know, when, and IF, they decide I should be IN the know. Until then, I don’t care if I know, because I don’t NEED to know.
In adopting this attitude, and curbing my projection of meaning onto everything and everyone, I have cut about ninety percent of the stress and distraction from my life. While the person in line behind me at the cash is still upset about the interaction they had with the cashier, I’m busy enjoying my purchase, letting the CASHIER worry about what is bothering him.
Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
When I bring up mindfulness, many of my friends look at me like I just disclosed being from Mars. The fact is, however, we are reminded to be present and pay attention (the essence of mindfulness) throughout our lives:
Pay attention in class… Look at me when I’m talking to you… Don’t be texting while driving or talking to someone… Stop and smell the roses…
Mindfulness is not new. Calling it mindfulness, and acknowledging its importance, is the only thing new about it.
I learned something very important this last year:
The thinker and the thought are one. I am not a person in the world having a thought- I am a thought being expressed in the world by way of a person.
When my thoughts are on loving another, and are given expression in the things I do, then I am not merely a person DOING love- I AM love.
The past as we remember it is only partly true. The future as we think of it is only a fantasy. The only thing that’s real is this moment right now.
Names are empty vessels. We inject our own expectations, perceptions, ideas, subjective experiences, and values into those names. How, then, can I judge or condemn John, or Mary, or anyone else for that matter.
Life’s greatest riches are not found, and are not stored up, at the end of my life. The are found here, in the middle of my journey- at every point along the way that I practice mindfulness.
You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. ~ Bible
A person is not a separate being. Continue reading
I think that a mind that has achieved emptiness and stillness, an entirely feminine state, must be completely free. There are no passions, needs, obsessions, preoccupations…- nothing tying it down, BINDING it, to any moment, any place, or any thing.
Such a mind is free to rise above the moment, the day, month, or one’s lifespan, and perceive forward and backward in time. It is free to assume the perspective of an object, another person, another group, all of mankind, or the entire world. Such a mind is free to accept anything, be anything, do anything, without worry of Self or self-interest.
Thinking on this, I believe a Free Mind such as this, at least to SOME extent, might be a prerequisite of true, utterly selfless, love.
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