The great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisquised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth than hold no opinion for or against.The struggle for what one likes and what one dislikes is the disease of the mind.
Sengstan, Hsin, Hsin Ming, Third Patriarch of Zen
I have been listening to Michael Singer's podcast, and serendipitously see how so much like the things I have been speaking and writing about lately they are. Amazing really. This recent one linked below that I finished this morning reminds me especially of what I was trying to convey in the little video blurp I did the other day, "Do Nothing" , as well as some of the related written entries here. Of course, I have been taking much of what I learned from him (and others) , chewing it up and spitting it back out. I am just thrilled to realize that I am actually "getting it!" I am learning. I am grateful for Michael Singer and his special way of putting this ancient teaching into a way that even the most secular mind could understand. I am so grateful for all the teachings and teachers I have received in one way or another; all this learning. It is all so amazing!
Anyway, as I sit here this morning I am thinking about this tendency we have to judge things as good or bad and to expect that Life be a certain way. Our preferring, discriminating, making distinctions, clinging to opinions and our struggling to get what we like and push away what we don't like is indeed the reason we are not okay upstairs.
I like how he describes the difference between spirituality and psychology. Both are involved in the process of understanding the mind. Psychology, however, focuses more on understanding the resistance of the mind as if it were normal, and helping it with its conditioned preferences. Spirituality is all about "undoing" this conditioned need for preferences and creating and maintianing a non resistant mind. I spent most of my life fascinated by the human mind. At first I focused on the psychology of the mind...so fascinated with that for a while I aspired to be a psychologist (which I never became). I saw the disease of the mind as a consequence of external forces and its potentional to react to these forces as normal and healthy. I resisted the spiritual component for its lack of scientific validation. Yet...I found myself gradually and somewhat reluctantly being pulled beyond psychology to something deeper. I came to see it was our reaction to external forces that was actually the disease of the mind...not the forces themself. I began to see the mind as both the source of suffering and its solution. Happiness is an inside game.
In order to undo the effects of this mind disease so many of us suffer from...we need to let go of our resistance and settle into what is. We begin by removing our preferences.
All is well.
Michael Singer/ Sounds True ( July , 2021) Spirituality- The Exploration of the Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE4_q7qdZ0E
All is well!
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