This busy world makes it difficult to calm my busy mind. That goes against the values of a society that doesn’t want to see itself clearly. A world infected by wrong views, wrong effort, and wrong everything down the line. Encouraging me to live within suffering, until, I found my way to the Practice.
Concentration, healthy renunciation, and holding to precepts are difficult to see as a gift when the world around me says otherwise. Yet, such efforts when properly tuned and tailored to suit, allow for quiet and clear seeing. That’s when the “Consumer” can see itself feeding, and reflect on the affects of various unhealthy types of food. Renunciation also gives the “Producer” a chance to create healthy food for the mind, since no other food is available. Then, when we reflect carefully on any healthy results achieved with appreciative-joy, we begin to incline the mind to new and healthy grooves.
Unfortunately, the “Producer” and “Consumer” within my mind have been doing battle as if Samurai in Feudal Japan for decades. They’ve been lost within the jungles of my personal narratives, where the “Producer” creates rotten food that the “Consumer” sucks up like a vacuum, only to increase in hunger and thirst. My challenge is to bring this all to light, forgivingly, and without judgment. Since the warriors have simply been doing what they’ve been trained to do, by a mind that thought such actions would bring about happiness.
In fact the “Producer” and “Consumer” of my mind are like parts of a Samurai sword. Picture the “Producer” as the handle, and the “Consumer” as the blade. Virtue keeps the blade clean and the handle comfortable for gripping. Concentration keeps the spotless blade sharp, and ready to cut through the defilements of ignorance with Discernment. Anyone can retrain the mind through Practice. Until the warriors in the mind become one.
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