Sit for ten minutes.
What was your experience?
Where did you experience resistance?
How do you handle that resistance?
Can you know your experience without conceptually elaborating it as you experience it?
Is mental chatter necessary to know your experience?
What is mind?
What are its characteristics and qualities?
When your mind is stable and calm, look deeper, what is there?
When your mind is agitated and restless, why? Why can't you fix that? And if you can, how?
What is the nature of mind?
Is it permanent or changing? Does it exist? How so?
Start sitting regularly. Start asking questions and looking for answers. Then ask more questions. Keep going deeper.
Where is the end? Where does it stop? When do you reach the ground? Are you sure that is it?
Clarify your practice. Let your practice clarify you.
Showing posts with label restless. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restless. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Monday, September 15, 2014
The white-glove test.
You probably all remember cleaning as a child. I do. Do you remember dusting, thinking that everything was clean and tidy, only to have your mother or father come along and point out dust you hadn't noticed?
How about your house now? I am willing to bet it looks pretty good, but would it stand up to the white-glove test?
Our minds are quite the same way. We keep our standard routines in place to feel like we have our act together. We eat healthy, exercise, get enough rest. We enjoy expressing gratitude and sharing our gifts with the world. We look and feel pretty good about ourselves. We are actually really down to earth, good natured people.
And then you sit down to meditate for ten minutes maintaining the discipline not to move. The white-glove test. What is really going on in our heads?
Most likely they are busy and restless. Thoughts, projects, conversations and memories race across our minds like a proverbial dust storm. We notice our minds chasing and grasping at all sorts of things- feelings, perceptions, sensations, appearances.
Intense.
Of course it is up to you to decide what to do with this information. You could let the dust be and see what happens, pretend its not there and hope no one notices. You could wait around, hoping that maybe someone else will do the dirty work for you. You could also get to work and start cleaning your own house.
Up to you.
How about your house now? I am willing to bet it looks pretty good, but would it stand up to the white-glove test?
Our minds are quite the same way. We keep our standard routines in place to feel like we have our act together. We eat healthy, exercise, get enough rest. We enjoy expressing gratitude and sharing our gifts with the world. We look and feel pretty good about ourselves. We are actually really down to earth, good natured people.
And then you sit down to meditate for ten minutes maintaining the discipline not to move. The white-glove test. What is really going on in our heads?
Most likely they are busy and restless. Thoughts, projects, conversations and memories race across our minds like a proverbial dust storm. We notice our minds chasing and grasping at all sorts of things- feelings, perceptions, sensations, appearances.
Intense.
Of course it is up to you to decide what to do with this information. You could let the dust be and see what happens, pretend its not there and hope no one notices. You could wait around, hoping that maybe someone else will do the dirty work for you. You could also get to work and start cleaning your own house.
Up to you.
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