Distractive footering

I am awake for 16 hours every day. The unconscious occupies most of that time with thoughts, feeling and moods (TFM). Some of the TFMs are channelled to the attention centre of the self conscious. The items of TFM leap about giving the notion of a monkey mind. There is also the notion of a zombie on autopilot. Your mind has a mind of its own but the details are programmed by your culture.

It is presently 15:15pm and I have been on the go since 08:30 am. I did not have a to do list determining at one moment what I would be doing at a later moment. But I have been busy with various more or less formal projects which are a mix of domestic chores (eg clean the kitchen) and technological challenges (eg set up machines for multitrack recording).

A list of today's other mini-project ideas that have flashed through the attention centre would be very long. The particular thoughts were influenced by feelings and moods which were a mix of negative, neutral and positive. A churning mix of macro and micro – the monkey mind.

But one of the thoughts caught attention. “The devil finds work for idle hands to do.” I had been footering - and this brought feelings of shame and guilt. There was thus the urge to enter a state of mindfulness. So I sat in a comfy chair, closed my eyes and focussed attention on the breath. The negative TFM were thus replaced by more positive ones. For example the title for this story was sent by my muse who has also been principle author. 'I' have been in 'flow'.

We are are possibly hard wired for distractive footering. The process helped to monitor the inputs from the sense organs and thus to be fast to notice and react when there is a lion in the vicinity. Woe to the absent minded philosopher and the mindful meditator: they would be relatively slow to respond and would thus be lion fodder.

But there are no lions in Portsoy. It is a safe place for philosophers to be in flow and for meditators to heed their muses. Students of the Way can then take their zombie off autopilot and their monkey mind can be set at peace. In a couple of weeks I will be 67; there is not much time left to heed the Bhudda's dying words - “Work out your salvation with diligence”.

Here is a start - I can aim to avoid distractive footering for more of my 16 waking hours each day.