Today, everything is interconnected. Destruction of your neighbor is destruction of yourself. So please, prepare your mind and heart with patience, knowledge, and skill, so that in the world and in every nation there can be peace.
-Dalai Lama (from today's calendar page)
Hmmm! I have been learning.
An Example of My Learning
I awoke this morning feeling sad and heavy almost to the core. My first conditioned reaction, once I realized how I was feeling, was to build story around it, to use the mind to analyze it , create conceptual reason for it...to give the pain conceptual meaning.
In itself, the heavy sadness was just that...heavy sadness...an emotion I could deal with...signalling maybe that some psychological component of my self was arising. Psychologically, I could understand it but I wanted automatically to build on the psychology of it...and to interpret it, label it, fix it, control it, solve it as the egoic mind so likes to do. I wanted to bring that feeling, that could be felt in my belly and chest and in the heaviness of my limbs, to my head instead of just letting it be.
The Usual Reaction to Pain
That has been my normal reaction to pain for as long as I can remember but I recognized myself almost immediately. I caught myself slipping into previously unconscious patterns of resisting. I was aware of myself reacting right away. So I was able to get beyond the Step One of Knowing Self that I wrote about yesterday. That is quite a thing.
Normally, I would have taken the feeling of sadness to the mind...and I would have worked on being able to see it clearly from that level. I would have pondered over and over again this question, "Why am I feeling sad? What is going on in my outer world that gives me reasons to be sad?' Then I would have begun searching for reasons, focusing on all the things in my Life that have caused pain or could cause pain. I would draw up old painful memories. I would feel even more pain. I would have thought, "Poor me!" etc. Then I would have asked, "How do I fix this or at least what can I get from it?" Then I would imagine telling my story to others, of writing about it, creating more drama and sadness.
I would have basically psycho analyzed and storied myself to death lol. Understanding the whys and hows of feeling and venting is not a problem in itself and even necessary to some extent...but...but...I ...the 'little me'... would have got stuck there.
I would have analyzed to the point of filtering the conceptual whys and hows from the actual experience of feeling and being...which is known as intellectualizing. The more I intellectualized how I felt mentally...the more the feeling would be numbed and stuffed down below the superficial layer beneath all the drama I would have created around it. The sadness would not have been experienced as it simply was asking to be. I would have used up much energy and time resisting the feeling...therefore resisting life in that moment the feeling arose... causing the 'Dukkha' or suffering' component of pain.
Awareness Keeps Us Conscious
But I didn't...I became aware of my egoic reactions before I got lost in them. By becoming aware, I got to choose another option. I went beyond my usual tendency to conceptualize. I let go of my need 'to know' and therefore staid conscious and aware. I simply was with the experience.
Hmm! That little learning outcome was interesting and gave me hope that I am getting there. I don't know where 'there' is but I am getting there because I am 'here'. The more I can catch myself beginning to react and the sooner I can...the more aware I will be.
Commitment to Preparing the Mind and Heart
Anyway...the point is... through the committed preparation of my mind and heart with patience, true non- conceptual knowledge and skill, I got to the point I didn't get lost in my usual conditioned reactions of slipping into unconsciousness...of slipping into the mind when the opportunity presented itself. (Ironic that this type of unconsciousness occurs when we call on the mind, and that the preferred type of consciousness occurs when we get beyond the mind, eh? )
I may slip next week, or tomorrow or half an hour from now but the more I am able to bring awareness into unconscious behavioral patterns, the more conscious I will become.
If I can do it , any of us can!!!
When we stop trying to addictively judge, interpret and label all our experiences or the experiences of others we will experience peace more often. When we relinquish our need to think, do, and narrate we will find the true knowing. It is in the place of peaceful knowing where we tap into who we really are.
Who are we?
And to get back to the Dalai Lama's words...we are all interconnected. When I hurt myself... I hurt another, when I hurt another... I hurt myself. And ...if I offer peace to you, I offer it to myself and vice versa . The same spacious place of peaceful knowing that is in you, is in me, in all of us.
Eckhart Tolle in You Are the Universe explains how we tend to react to people who are present, conscious and aware. We feel relaxed and peaceful around them. We tend to like them and have nice things to say about them. Why? Not because they are anything special or offer anything extraordinary. But simply because we sense that there is no judgment and interpretation...so we can relax without feeling like we are being judged. Peace and judgment do not go together.
True knowing involves no judgment!!! So when we are using that knowing to look at another person, we don't feel the need to judge them. We can see beyond the superficial personality and behaviour of the other to the presence, the same presence that is in us. We therefore help to create a more peaceful world.
Hmm! Something to think about!
All is well.
Eckhart Tolle (2019) You are the Universe. (as linked in the previous entry)
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