Repetitive rants

Most of my more recent rants have been saying the same thing. But this is not a problem. Repetition helps to consolidate the message and thus encourage the practice. Writing the stories is a cognitive equivalent to reading the short daily dharma quotes that arrive in my email and on Facebook . 

repetitive and reinforcing

But old habits die hard. It is easy to slip out of mindfulness and to have the mind racing. These days I am less prone to anxiety and panic attacks and, when they begin, I notice them. This helps to defuse them.

The good news is that restlessness and anxiety are less than they were. The not so good news is that sloth and torpor are more than they were. When meditating and when reading I tend to dose or sleep. But there is no need to feel bad about this. It is just a phase. And anyway, I stay awake when writing and this is usually a non-egoic process. 

These days loads of stuff happens without rational and conscious control. Time is spent calmly noticing the stuff entering and leaving the attention centre. Sometimes a few ends tie together, non-egosity kicks in, and a story appears. This absent minded state can last from a few minutes to a few hours. 

‘I’ expect another paragraph to appear to round off this rant. ‘My’ task is to keep the ego quiet so that stuff from the unconscious can be noticed. BUT, if the system fails, ‘I’ can revert to plan B which is to choose a wisdom book at random and pick a pertinent quote.

“We are dealing with the deepest forces in the mind, and epiphany is seldom immediate.” -  Henepola Gunaratana