There’s a type of stability that I’m getting when I can simply see how my mind wants to interpret this way and that. I watch it do that, and it can be often trying to find a problem. That’s it’s job I suppose. So I’m noticing the emotional volatility of believing the minds interpretation, versus just returning to the silence and isness of what is actually happening right now. There is little to think about mostly. It is what it is.
My friend died recently. I was really at peace with that. He had a great life, his pain was over. And I feel great thanks for knowing him. And I could see the mind jumping in with its interpretation and commentary about not seeing him again, and I could have got more upset if I had listened to that commentary. Some of these stories and interpretations are more seductive that others. My dog is dying and a core part of me is also at peace with that, like completely at ease with it. Her life has been fabulous, her contribution to us marvellous, she isn’t suffering, but she is coming to the end now. It will be time to take her to the vet soon. I could go through the whole thing in the state I’m now in about it, calm love. I will feel sad as can be when it happens. And I can also be at peace in that. I’m learning to allow emotions to arise, and be at ease with them.
I think what is disquieting me a bit is that how at peace I am at any one moment is up to me. I can be in the experience and empty of conceptual thought. Or I can resist experiences and attention can get carried into conceptual thought, the stories and interpretations. Sometimes the mind can decide I should be unhappy about something and if I believe it, I end up feeling unhappy. Or it can decree something is scary, like it kind of is right now, it says that Resisting the temptation to interpret, is pretty damn scary. It doesn’t like that because then it doesn’t have a job to do as it likes to have problems to solve or dangers to identify.
To part of me it feels very unstable. Letting go of this tyranny. And yet it is a whole other level of stability. Maybe it’s not being a victim of thought that is scary. The freedom of it. And the nothingness of it too. Feeling up or down, well they come and go, they don’t even seem to matter. Oh here is a low mood, oh now here is a joyful mood. Passing experiences. And I remain amidst it all. Just stable and empty, just consciousness experiencing. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. But doing what’s necessary and in front of me to do. Now it’s time to brush the teeth. Now it’s time to call that client. Now it’s time to go to the river. It’s all happening and it’s as if I’m just being carried along by it. It’s not good or bad, it just is.
So often every day I interrupt my minds chit chat, I disrupt the flow of it, and its grip on my attention with a moment of being utterly present. I take the attention to the way the leaves are moving on a tree as I drive past, or to feeling the body’s weight as I sit on the chair, or the breath. Short moments many times of returning all day long. This is mostly what I do with my time, and if I have a mission then this is it. I’m just going to carry on doing this and see what happens. I’ve discovered that I don’t have to think much at all, and life happens anyway. And happens perfectly mostly without planning much and without much drama too.
Learning to Rest with it All 