2008-02-15-0558
I've begun to ask.
Visions of the impossibility of individuality,
Of watching behavior flow through me/this node
Of staying still until the motive came to move,
of swimming until the motive came to stop.
Of laying still, watching thoughts come, go, cycle--
letting them go--coming again--where are they coming from?
Where is the pleasure here?
Of looking back afterward on the absolute unquestioning in me as I wrote an email or worked on a web page for a long time--
Of questioning the turmoil that sending an email, preparing for an action, caused in me.
Why is this node / am I doing this? Where is the pleasure here.
Seeing and feeling there was no pleasure in the turmoil, in the cycling of thoughts--
I began to practice stopping -
When we ride on a horse which is out of control, I think our deepest wish is to stop. How can we stop? We have to resist the speed, the losing of ourselves, and therefore we must organize a resistance. Spending two hours on a cup of tea during a tea meditation is an act of resistance, nonviolent resistance. We can do it because we have a Sanghakaya [community of practitioners]. We can do it together, we can resist a way of life that makes us lose ourselves.(From Nhat Hanh, The Path of Emancipation: Talks from a 21-Day Mindfulness Retreat. Parallax.org, 2000. 110. 7-9)
- I saw Thay Nhat Hanh's smiling face. I saw the smiling, loving face of the monk teaching walking meditation. -
I slowed my walk, clasped my hands in front, and breathed in with a few steps, breathed out with a few steps, walking slowly. Bringing attention to where this node / I was, dissociating attention more often from the cycling thoughts, smiling a half smile--
all that I'd learned from Nhat Hanh, a visit to Deerpark, and time with others too--
So, where is the pleasure here?
I'm typing here--, I'm smiling a half smile, I have a little tears--
Where is the pleasure here?
Where do the words come from?
Why is this node / am I typing them?
Why do I continue?
Why did I start?
When will this motive stop moving through this node / me?
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I go back to WIE.org's little blurb about Teilhard de Chardin's omega point.
There is a Vision moving through me / this node.
Moving through every one--
If we practice stopping we can feel it coming.
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Where is the pleasure? Lila?
Why did I ever mindlessly eat and read, eat and read? Not stopping till the food or reading was done?
Why did I ever work on sending an email, making a web page, not stopping even when it first got published, but going over and over the parts of it as if bombs had been dropped in my landscape, leaving new features to explore?
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Why am I / is this node / is this writing / are these words
moving through this node.
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So, the vision is coming.
I can relax about it.
I can practice stopping. Leaving the thoughts.
They will all get thought.
The ideas will all become happened.
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Why is there ever lack of control?
What is the vision?
Why is it not already here? Is it not?
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Why do we ever act contrary to the vision?
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do we ever--
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So, I watch my starting and stopping. Wondering where they come from.
Once, maybe unhappy, I thought there was no point to anything.
But I see now "I had never really stopped" (See Satish Kumar's story of Angulimala--_The Buddha and the Terrorist_. Buddha: "I have already stopped. You, Angulimala, have not.")
The thoughts kept going--
never really stopped.
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So, do I just watch the vision coming? Where is the pleasure here?
Are the automatic times when it is coming? Is the writing here when it is coming? Is the working in the garden? Is the eating? the reading?
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I don't just sit still and thoughtless for ever. The time comes to move again.
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I rarely sit still and thoughtless for very long at all.
