This week I move from cultivating my sense of absolute joy, that joy that is at the core of my awareness, undiluted and undiminished by all the cultural and family programming, to cultivating absolute self. This is the self that can pull back from all the monkey energy that I love even while it distracts me from the better life Ben and I could be having.
I'm going to try and experiment this spring break. I'm going to treat Ben as though he is operating from absolute self, even though his monkey mind is strong. I'm going to continue bringing this absolute self into tasks, writing, work, even T.V. watching. I'm definitely going to bring it into the dinner I'm having tonight with my parents. But I'm also going to look for and connect with the absolute self in others.
I'm going to watch out for irritation, judgement, defensiveness. I'm going to use tonglen as a way of loosening the grip of my monkey energy.
Above all, I'm going to keep watch on my monkey mind and monkey energy. Just keep watch. See it as my companion, my old friend, my child even. But not myself. I am not monkey mind. I am this strong, lucid, wise presence that gets stronger with every meditation.
