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Wednesday, October 22. 2008

Leash Your Monkey Mind

Tuesday Morning my friend Miss March posted a picture (left) on a forum we frequent in reply to one of my messages.

Americans, by and large, are not at rest mentally or emotionally and although most of us won’t openly admit it, or at least talk about it, our minds are racing to keep up with the millions of little stimuli that bombard our thoughts throughout our waking days. And to be honest, how many of us really have dreams we can remember anymore? Even our dreams race from one scenario to another.

So, I had to pause my frenetic morning. It wasn’t frenetic with physical activity, just nonstop jumping from one idea to the next, creating and editing an ever-changing “to-do” list in my head, never bothering to actually write something down for use as a guide on what to do next. Just moments taken over by thoughts, over run by still more cogitation until paralysis sets in and it’s noon, half-past the day and nothing — I mean nothing — of any credible value has been accomplished.

“I think, therefore I am …” inert, anchored — mired — in solitary nothingness, chased through time, space and destination by a never-ending stampede of ideas, notions, plans and diversions.

 I like diversions, especially the prurient ones!

The picture reminded me of the value in meditation. I have no knowledge of Transcendental Meditation (TM), that’s beyond my education, but the simple act of pausing in the day and collecting my thoughts and pushing them aside, bringing just a moment or two of order to an otherwise unordered life in a complicated and somewhat unordered society. Hell, society may seem so unordered simply because my life appears to have none. And yet that is just an appearance.

There is order; the universe is perfectly balanced. It may appear to be out of balance, but that’s because we have a jaundiced eye when it comes to what is and what we think it should be. The Earth’s atmosphere is warming at a faster rate than what’s natural due to the human carbon footprint. That would appear to be nature out of balance, but it isn’t. It’s the atmosphere adjusting to our pollution of the air, creating a balance if you will.

Eventually, this will doom the planet to another ice age much sooner than might otherwise occur, but our environment adjusts to our presence. One way or another, Earth will cleanse itself, whether we like it or not.

And that was just an example of my Monkey Mind, flying off on a tangent only — barely — remotely related to the subject on which this entry began and slightly connected to the jumping off point of the tangent: balance. My life is perfectly balanced. I do nothing, so I receive nothing in return. When I show up to work, a paycheque follows. When I sit and mindlessly view the detritus of the Internets, I get in return exactly what was meant to be the result — little if anything.

Although this morning I learned a little something about the Canadian military in WWI when they won the battle of Vimy Ridge where there is now a national monument and cemetery for the Canadians who gave their Last full Measure of Devotion during that battle during “The Great War.”

Knowledge enriches us, gives us a new perspective; we should always have a mind open to the possibility of finding new information. Judgments and decisions made when a full range of information and possibilities can be considered are usually the most rewarding, or least painful, decisions. I can be woefully ignorant in this regard.

Forethought isn’t one of my strong suits. Anyone who has read this blog with any regularity knows that more than once I’ve edited (deleted) whole sections because a day later they just no longer seemed like good ideas.

The incessant and unimpeded stampede of thoughts lends itself to action and decisions without any forethought. As I contemplate the publication of this entry, I wonder if it’s the time for this. Sarah Palin and her fellow Republicans have just officially divided America. There is the real, “pro-America” America, and then the rest of us, presumably, “anti-America” Americans. So much can be written about that topic, but that’s tomorrow’s screed.

Today, let’s remember: Water, if we do not stir it, becomes clear. Similarly, our minds, if we don’t stir them, find peace. Just for a moment today I want to find that peace. Some may call it serenity, to let go of Samsara and look for Nirvana. Stop projecting outwardly and getting lost in that projection to instead turn inward and recognize my true nature.

Instead of emptying my mind, returning it to its natural fullness, void of the outside agitation that stirs it and fills it with negativity: fear, anger, hostility.

Twelve and a half years ago I experienced a very spiritual moment when I knew, without any projected filters to color the reality, all of my material belongings were worthless. I read something in the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying that reminded me of that explicitly: “Learn to die and thou shall learn how to live. There shall none learn how to live that has not learnt to die.”

Ironically, the man who wrote that, a well-regarded and revered Buddhist Lama, Sogyal Rinpoche is/was at the center of sexual misconduct lawsuit 13 years ago. Obviously, we are all human and we all have human flaws and the revered Lama abused his station as a spiritual leader to have sex with women who came to him for spiritual guidance.

Regardless of the Yogi’s actions, there is a truth to learning how to die. At the moment, when I accepted the truth that before the night was through (March 16, 1996) I could either be dead or alive, I arrived at Nirvana and was wrapped in serenity. The irony of that moment: I knew nothing about Buddhism. What could a Yogi tell me about that!

Posted by Tim Forkes in Life at 00:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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