Flashlight

You wouldn’t use a flashlight the wrong way.  It’s always clear that the light should be pointed at what needs to be seen.  If you don’t do it right you will remain in the dark.  Stumble, hit your big toe and hopefully not fall.  Ouch!  Talk about needless stress and suffering.  Turn the darn thing on and point it at where you are going.

If only it were that easy with the mind.  Our attention is always flying around all over the place.  We look for happiness in things, and we don’t pay enough attention to our own intentions, actions or results.  It is human to make mistakes.  But why do we always repeat them?  Why can’t the mind stay?

Thinking is the most delicious thing I’ve ever done.  I am addicted to it.  And it’s very difficult to catch myself when my mind wanders, since I like doing so.  And have been for a long time.  If only it were like a flashlight so that I can turn it off when I don’t want to think.  But the mind is not a battery driven machine.

The mind is driven in the present by what we have been inclined to value in the past.  And whenever a given phenomena comes up again we either change our values, or continue to support old ones.  The mind might seem to randomly jump, but there is nothing random about it.  Whatever you are experiencing in your mind this moment, is what you’ve trained in.  So, what exactly are we training in?

Yesterday I observed Uposatha.  I hit just about every note I promised myself I would, with many mistakes in between.  But I kept at it.  My mind is addicted to thinking, and that became unmistakably clear yesterday as I tried to focus on breathing.  But I took joy in my past and present efforts to practice.  That fueled me with the desire to get through the difficult moments of anxiety and thinking.  I might still be walking around in the dark.  But I know where the flashlight is.  And I intend to turn it on, and around, “little by slowly.”

NOTE:  It definitely pays off to pay a visit to the wise folks you know walking the same way.  It helped me!  It always helps me.
http://www.dnymc.org/