Thank you for this post which resonates. I really enjoy reading and also written reflection so I hope it OK i share my reflections from the post here.
Working a full time job I get up early to practice each morning and get home in the evening and do my evening practice but almost always with a sense of not 'doing' enough! I admit I sometimes look at people who seem to have a lot more time to do retreats or hang out in holy places and wish I had that time too.
I therefore like the perspective of renunciation relating to renouncing my own mental habits which I see would just follow wherever I went and whatever the circumstances. I know I have a habit of 'pushing myself' in all areas of life including the dharma which shows the influence of the 8 worldly dharmas on my mind.
Social media is also definitely a sense of distraction, in fact many things are. I guess more shamata with support could help there.
I find life and phenomena seem to have a way of reflecting things back to me - like a gigantic mirror. Recently, I felt I had finally overcome a particular habit and was feeling more spacious about it and then an e-mail from my boss landed in my inbox and triggered the habit/reaction again.
I find it is in those precise split seconds - sitting at work - that I know I am faced with the choice when these things first stir in my mind. Actually, even having the awareness to see that there IS a choice is itself a good start. However, often the chain reactions are so instantaneous that the story line is blazing in the blink of an eye and before I know it those chains of reactivity have locked in tightly with the resulting suffering.
The times I can slow this chain of events down I see it starts with an uncomfortable 'energy.'..which can fast develop into a reaction, an emotion and fuel a familiar storyline. The storyline can then quickly be solidified further via words and actions.
If I can catch the 'energy' and stop its development and solidification there and then (through various antidotes) I consider that renunciation. On that particular occasion I couldn't manage it.....I saw it coming....but the emotion came so quickly, and almost at once the storyline kicked in like a familiar well worn record or soap opera...on it played - but at least with less intensity and for a shorter period of time than it might have done in the past.
Thank you so much for your reflections. I am glad my post stimulated your own personal reflection on these topics and, as you say, it became yet another mirror for you to see where you are at with the complications of your mind. From what you say it sounds as though you are actually doing the right things and the process of trying and failing and trying again also sounds very familiar. Isn't it so wonderful to at least have tools with which we can understand all this and work with it? So many people don't have those tools and are at a loss.
Thank you for this post which resonates. I really enjoy reading and also written reflection so I hope it OK i share my reflections from the post here.
Working a full time job I get up early to practice each morning and get home in the evening and do my evening practice but almost always with a sense of not 'doing' enough! I admit I sometimes look at people who seem to have a lot more time to do retreats or hang out in holy places and wish I had that time too.
I therefore like the perspective of renunciation relating to renouncing my own mental habits which I see would just follow wherever I went and whatever the circumstances. I know I have a habit of 'pushing myself' in all areas of life including the dharma which shows the influence of the 8 worldly dharmas on my mind.
Social media is also definitely a sense of distraction, in fact many things are. I guess more shamata with support could help there.
I find life and phenomena seem to have a way of reflecting things back to me - like a gigantic mirror. Recently, I felt I had finally overcome a particular habit and was feeling more spacious about it and then an e-mail from my boss landed in my inbox and triggered the habit/reaction again.
I find it is in those precise split seconds - sitting at work - that I know I am faced with the choice when these things first stir in my mind. Actually, even having the awareness to see that there IS a choice is itself a good start. However, often the chain reactions are so instantaneous that the story line is blazing in the blink of an eye and before I know it those chains of reactivity have locked in tightly with the resulting suffering.
The times I can slow this chain of events down I see it starts with an uncomfortable 'energy.'..which can fast develop into a reaction, an emotion and fuel a familiar storyline. The storyline can then quickly be solidified further via words and actions.
If I can catch the 'energy' and stop its development and solidification there and then (through various antidotes) I consider that renunciation. On that particular occasion I couldn't manage it.....I saw it coming....but the emotion came so quickly, and almost at once the storyline kicked in like a familiar well worn record or soap opera...on it played - but at least with less intensity and for a shorter period of time than it might have done in the past.
Thank you so much for your reflections. I am glad my post stimulated your own personal reflection on these topics and, as you say, it became yet another mirror for you to see where you are at with the complications of your mind. From what you say it sounds as though you are actually doing the right things and the process of trying and failing and trying again also sounds very familiar. Isn't it so wonderful to at least have tools with which we can understand all this and work with it? So many people don't have those tools and are at a loss.