Suppose I’m condemned to have my head chopped off in a guillotine. Now I’m being marched up the steps onto the platform. Can I maintain attention to the moment? Can I be aware of each step, step by step? Can I place my head in the guillotine carefully so that I serve the executioner well? If I am able to live and die in this way, no problem arises.

Our problems arise when we subordinate this moment to something else, our self-centered thoughts: not just this moment, but what I want. We bring to the moment our personal priorities, all day long. And so our troubles arise.

When attention to the present moment falters and we drift into some version of “I have to have it my way,” a gap is created in our awareness of reality as it is, right now. Into that gap pours all the mischief of our life. We create gap after gap after gap, all day long. The point of practice is to close those gaps, to reduce the amount of time that we spend being absent, caught in our self-centered dream.

We make a mistake, however, if we think that the solution is that I pay attention. Not “I sweep the floor,” “I slice the onions,” “I drive the car.” Though such practice is okay in the preliminary stages, it preserves self-centered thought in naming oneself as an “I” to which experience is present. A better understanding is simple awareness: just experiencing, experiencing, experiencing. In mere awareness there is no gap, no space for self-centered thoughts to arise. When self-centered thoughts come up, then we’ve missed the boat; we’ve got a gap. That gap is the birthplace of the troubles and upsets that plague us.

Every time we have a complaint about our lives, we’re in a gap. In awareness practice, we notice our thoughts and the contraction in our body, taking it all in and returning to the present moment. That’s the hardest practice. We’d rather escape this scene entirely, or else stay immersed in our little upsets. After all, our upsets keep us the center of things, or so we think. The pull of our self-centered thoughts is like walking through molasses: our feet come out of the molasses with difficulty and then rapidly get stuck again. We can slowly liberate ourselves; but if we think it’s easy, we are kidding ourselves.

Whenever we’re upset, we’re in the gap; our self-centered emotions, what we want out of life, are dominant. Yet our emotions of the moment are no more important than replacing the chair at the table, or putting the cushion where it should be.

Most emotions do not arise out of the immediate moment (such as when we witness a child being hit by a car), but are generated by our self-centered demands that life be the way we want it to be. Though it’s not bad to have such emotions, we learn through practice that they have no importance in themselves. Straightening the pencils on our desk is just as important as feeling bereft or lonely, for example. If we can experience being lonely, and see our thoughts about being lonely, then we can move out of the gap. Practice is that movement, over and over again. If we remember something that happened six months ago and with the memory come upset feelings, our feelings should be looked at with interest, nothing more. Though that sounds cold, it’s necessary in order to be a genuinely warm and compassionate person. If we find ourselves thinking that our feelings are more important than what is happening at the moment, we need to notice that thought. Sweeping the walk is reality; our feelings are something we’ve made up, like a web we have spun in which we catch ourselves. It’s an amazing process that we put ourselves through; in a way, we are all crazy.

When I see my thoughts and note my bodily sensations, recognize my resistance to practicing with them, and then return to finishing the letter I’m writing, then I’ve moved out of the gap into awareness. If we are truly persistent, day after day, we gradually find our way out of the gooey mess of our personal lives. The key is attention, attention, attention.

Writing a check is just as important as the anguished thought that we won’t see a loved one. When we don’t work with the gap created by inattention, everyone pays the price.

Mason wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 9:49 amPersonal context is that years ago FM Tmidgett_Archive set me down the path of half-assed zen study, and returning to it with greater interest in pandemic times has been of great help.

This is Charlotte Joko Beck; I read this as excerpted here, from her book Nothing Special.

Mason wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 9:49 am This is Charlotte Joko Beck

Curry Pervert wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 5:10 pm

Mason wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 9:49 am This is Charlotte Joko Beck

That sounds very similar to Eckhart Tolle's The Power Of Now.

the finger genius wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 8:23 am My 8 year old son was diagnosed as Bipolar this week. I'm having a rough time dealing with, in part because I have a cousin a few years older than me who was diagnosed maybe 20 years ago who has had serious problems with it (attacked his parents on multiple occasions, been in and out of psych hospitals for most of his adult life.)

The Dr. recommended we put him on Depakot, would greatly appreciate hearing from anyone who is bipolar (or has someone bipolar in the family) and / or anyone who has experience with this med.