I’ve always been looking for an everlasting final destination in the future, a final state of perfection, beauty, love, pleasure, wisdom, freedom, clarity, truth, peace, enlightenment, effortlessness, painlessness; but the state that I imagine will only ever exist in an imagined future. (Actually I am aware that sometimes what I really want is a complete and total end of myself (as body-mind-emotions-ego) because it seems that everything just ends up being pain of some kind, whether physical, mental-emotional, or addictive.) I’ve followed my mind ego and undertaken many actions in order to make or find that state. The recurring anger, rage and sadness that sometimes dominate my awareness indicate that following and identifying with the mind-ego doesn’t work and also shows me that contrary to what I would like to believe, I do still seek results (like freedom from pain, addiction, and karma as a result of the decades that I have spent practicing yoga, or financial freedom or security and a home that I like as a result of the work that I do). The mind’s nature as I usually experience it is to do anything and everything but be content in the present moment. In its relentless obsession with results, it mourns and/or regrets the past; it throws tantrums when its desires aren’t fulfilled; it worries or dreams about the future, scheming and planning in order to experience pleasure and avoid pain, often embarking on what’s next before completing what isn’t finished. My experience of mind includes times when I have extreme hatred about pretty much everything. I dwell on unrealistic expectations that will never be met, looking for security and stability where it will never be found, expecting the world and other people to change to fulfill my desires.
I can only continue to explore “who am I?” and attempt to find ways to abide in and share compassion that is rooted in Truth and not illusion, forgive myself and others for the times when we fail at that, in various ways, big and small. Attempting to remember that success or failure is merely a matter of perception; trying to avoid labelling things, people, experiences, and life in general in terms of the opposites (good/bad, pleasure/pain, success/failure) trying to let go of the desire for an everlasting personal bliss.
Comfort pleasure is a trap. Freedom to do what we like is a trap. Whatever I create or own is a trap.
I am frequently bothered by my failure to achieve perfection, sometimes it is like mental-emotional torture that is with me wherever I go and whatever I do which I have no power to stop. How many times must I make the same mistakes? How many times must I experience the disappointment of the manifest, looking for the ultimate Truth in the false? It’s easier to blame other people, circumstances and situations than face the truth that my mind ego and my attachments are really the source of the misery: my attachment to progress towards perfection, liberation, and goal achievement (and my mind’s habit of frustration at never achieving a goal that satisfies it in a lasting way), my attachment to my body, mind, habits, emotions, people, things, austerities, indulgences, pleasure, pain and even my so-called yoga practice. My inability to see and experience things as they really are instead of how I want or imagine them to be certainly doesn’t help the situation. In certain matters, such as the pursuit of Truth, mind (and its habit of acting on desires and fears resulting from memory) is a hindrance instead of an asset.
I confess that the virtues that people attribute to me are not really true because I cannot always maintain them. This realization often surfaces and disturbs the false peace of mind-ego. Halle-fuckin-lujah
I’m also often bothered by the fact that I experience feelings of dislike and hatred towards myself and others and life in general. I sometimes (probably more often than I would like to admit) pretend and lie for food, shelter, and comfort (as well as maintaining the image of myself that I want other people to see and believe) hiding my selfishness, anger, sadness, addiction and pain, feeling like a slave to the personal and communal debt that I have accumulated as a result of past decisions that I have made out of my ignorance. The debt consists of both merits and demerits which yield pleasure and pain, profit and loss, often defying logic, impossible to understand and/or navigate by means of mind-ego. It is ever-present, only existing to eventually yield true nakedness. Both pleasure and pain end up being distractions and obstacles to nakedness, and desired fruits as well as undesired fruits both end up being obstacles to liberation. Both have their own message and purpose, but neither in and of themselves yield Truth. What do I do when no one is watching? Am I able to endure what I believe to be pain resulting from another being’s actions, or pain that has no apparent cause? What do I do when others are watching? How do I reconcile the person I am in private to the one I am in public? Why are shame, addiction, and ignorance so deeply ingrained in us that they seem to be part of our natural state?
I am tired of rules, boundaries and vows that I and/or other people don’t follow or enforce. What is it that I lack? The intention, wisdom, strength of will, compassion, dispassion, courage, or purity of heart, or is it just the fact that I am not really tired of it? (Or is it that the boundaries don’t really exist?) Regardless, it is important to keep trying; earnestness is essential and seems to be the only thing of any real value in life.
I am tired of the lies that I live, tell, and experience that I have no power to stop. The lie that there’s an achievement, goal or experience that will lastingly satisfy “me”. The lie of progress towards a state of perfection. The lie that the spiritual path leads to an end state of pain-free paradise. The lie of a beautiful modern life. The lie that I can own things and indulge in personhood and still live Truth. The lie that a satisfied, happy mind can be achieved by living a successful modern life. The lie that I conveniently tell myself that I am in control of and responsible for one mind-body only and perhaps some other people, beings, objects, and a certain amount of space and time around it. The lie that I am performing actions and am entitled to the fruits of those actions. The lie of the mind when it says “All I want is just this one simple, small thing ….”
Contrary to a widely held and deeply rooted belief which many of us live, we all cause and bear each other’s burden, and there are no exceptions, no matter how it may appear, no matter how strongly we may want to believe otherwise. Everything experienced through the senses is ultimately illusion, no matter how intense, pervasive, inescapable, or persistent it may seem.
I am tired of my anger, and yet it still happens. I am tired of my inability to just be content. Will I ever honor and accept these things as necessary parts of life, decipher their message beyond petty concerns of ego and act accordingly? The greatest challenge seems to be maintaining gratitude; it is not a natural tendency for the mind as I experience it.
I can’t help but be bothered that I’m not free of pain or free of the pettiness of ego after all of the time I’ve spent practicing (as well as performing various other actions or sacrifices). I realize that being bothered in this way means that I have done much of it with selfish motive, placing more importance on the result than each moment of the process itself, putting forth effort in an attempt to manipulate things to produce a future personal paradise. I also can’t help persisting in the endeavor of practice, no one can know whether or not one day I will be free of the pettiness, completely present, here, now on the eternal road asking and living the only true question, “who am I”?