In a previous post I came to the conclusion that I should contemplate where meaning comes from.
I did keep this in mind while meditating, and I even went so far as to ask my friends on Facebook where they find meaning in their lives. This has been a very fruitful exercise, and I really appreciate the people who took the time to respond and share a bit of themselves. A couple of things occurred to me after this contemplation and discussion.
One is that I find meaning in making progress. I like to feel like I'm heading toward something. This may have something to do with my "block," in that I think I probably felt in various ways that I was not progressing, that I had already done all there was to do, both in my work and my meditative practice. I think that fixating on progress and becoming discouraged at setbacks is not a good thing, but still it feels good to be heading somewhere.
I also recalled a heartfelt aspiration from my past: I want to be as conscious as possible. I don't want to operate on auto-pilot all the time. When reality happens and choices are made, I want to be there fully present. I still find this to be a laudable goal and I definitely want to continually increase the duration of my fully conscious episodes throughout the day. I realize now however that I need more mundane goals to sustain me along the way, since I can't get to the fully conscious state easily or quickly. It's like I want to travel to a certain place where I won't need certain items, but I can't get there without those items. I can't say exactly what those items are at the moment, but maybe a sense of progress is one of them. My state of mind as of last week was perhaps more like, "I should be in a certain place, and I refuse to admit I am not there, so let's shut down consciousness a bit so as to accommodate the lie." I still feel like I'm grasping blindly in the dark here, but I am enjoying the process of trying to get it out in the open, and searching with a "beginner's mind," not knowing the answer ahead of time.
Cheers!
1 comment:
"My state of mind as of last week was perhaps more like, 'I should be in a certain place, and I refuse to admit I am not there, so let's shut down consciousness a bit so as to accommodate the lie.'"
That's a damned good analysis of your own avoidant behavior. That's a pretty high level of self awareness/examination.
I do the same thing, and it's like I get trapped on rails. The scope of my vision narrows to the path directly in front of me. I feel alternately impelled and drifting, rather than self-propelled or even flowing. As I continue along the track, it becomes more and more difficult to detach. For me, I would describe it as a low-level intermittent depression that I often don't recognize until it's been building for a week or two.
Post a Comment