Core Stillness

I'm beginning to see how the subject of my life is competence.

Every book I've been grappling with seems to be about that.  And every book I haven't finished seems to be about that. 

But I still don't really feel competent, and maybe that's why I don't seem to be able to finish them. 

It's like I'm missing some kind of core competency.  Maybe that competency is the ability to feel competent. The ability to notice the small actions I take to make my life and my son't life better. Or rather the habit of doing this.  Because I have the ability.  We all have the ability to notice the small things that we do. 

It's basic behavioural theory.  To assimilate something you need to continue rewarding it from time to time. And one of the deepest and most effective rewards is simple acknowledgement. 

One of my great accomplishments is meditation.  But it's not transformative if I don't bring it into my daily life. I need to stop frequently, throughout the day, and notice that I'm doing that to keep my life, mind and heart centred and present. 

Remorse

As I become more fully and regularly in touch with the basic goodness, the awareness of which arises and is strengthened by my hour a day morning practice, I'm confronted with other feelings.  Grief. Remorse. The need to forgive and be forgiven.
  I spent so much of my life just wandering around looking for help and healing. The path is clearer now, but now I'm processing the realization that the path was always there, but I chose differently.  I chose television, hopeless relationships, isolation, numbness and escape. Not always. I also chose books, made and maintained friendships, psychotherapy, Zhan Zhuang.  But sometimes I only see the confusion.
This may be because I've been wandering off the path of late. Looking for other teachers and not quite devoting myself to the Tergar program, as I kind of vowed to do.
  Kind of vowed.  That says it all.  I'm still not committing. Not committing to this, to my writing career, to the non-profit I'm starting, to Ben. To any one thing really.
  And I'm beating myself up about it.
  Let's look for this moment at the things that I am committed to.  An hour a day practice, which is no small thing. My Tergar retreats, which take time and money.  My running.  And I have been editing my book every morning.  It feels ready.
  There's a commitment there that arises automatically out of the energy that I build through these commitments. It steadies me, even when I wander off.
  This week, I will return to my level three practice routine.  Keep to the algorithm of the path I've been engaged in.  I'm not ready to commit to Ngondro. It's interesting, but I'm not there yet.  So I'm going to keep to the secular path for now. It's more sustainable in the life I'm living. If and when I feel grief and remore, I will recognize them as signs that I'm making progress, deepening my awareness, which included the recognition of where I went wrong and the consequences of those behaviours, and letting go, which always brings with it the sharpness of grief.  These are purifying emotions.  I can handle them.
  But for now I return.

Progress

How do I know I'm making progress? And what exactly is progress in timeless awareness? Progress is dependent on time and a sense of time, a self and a sense of self being better or getting worse. My mission is to increase the well-being, emotional, spiritual, physical, intellectual and financial in my life. And in the lives of others. Accomplishing this mission depends on a sense and criteria for progress.

So by what markers do I know I'm making progress?  Is it how many times a day I hear messages of compassion over messages of self-loathing?  Is it how well I'm sleeping?  Is it how I feel, generally in my heart?  How much writing I'm getting done and how well my writing is going?  Is it how happy my son seems?  How well we're able to negotiate solutions to problems? The maturity and wisdom we bring to the problems we encounter? How do I know that I'm healing?

Is it just the quality of the energy I feel? How intentional my living feels?

I'm not going to answer this today.  Just mull over these questions this week.  And see if I can answer them next week.

Is it the taste of purification?

Is it joy?

Is it clarity?

Is it my ability to make a commitment?

Is it that I have more power?

Is it bliss and non-conceptual awareness?

negative mantra

I still have a very negative voice in my head. A voice rooted in longstanding depression and self-loathing. It tells me regularly throughout the day "I'm depressed." "I hate myself". And it asks regularly "what do you want?"

I'm experimenting this week with using these entrenched chronic thoughts as triggers to consciousness. When I hear "I'm depressed" I look up at the sky. I connect as much as possible with my natural openness and remember how vast and full of potential the word is. When I hear "I hate myself" I take a moment to feel some loving kindness towards myself, and anyone else who comes to mind. When I hear that question what do I want? I reply authentic happiness, for myself and for everyone.

Today I try to focus as much as possible on just what that means for me, authentic happiness. I'm trying to visualize a procession of dawns where the chi grows in my body, heart and mind. I'm trying to imagine a clean, tidy house that stays clean and tidy. I'm trying to imagine enough money in the bank to maintain a simple life with a few meaningful luxuries. I'm trying to imagine work that inspires other people towards happiness as well.

Above all I try to catch myself when I'm drifting off towards meaningless anger and negativity and I try and nip that in the bud.

Dawn

Woke up late this morning. Somehow my alarm had been turned off. But my eyes opened and I could see the golden light and lavender sky of dawn from my window. Got out of bed just in time to see the golden window. A few minutes into my meditation the sun was up and the window had turned silver.

Yesterday in the afternoon I felt overwhelmed, tired, lost faith in myself. I lay down and simply imagined myself cradled in this golden light. Later in the day I read Ricard's book and he suggested an exercise. Imagine that you are taking in somebody's suffering, sucking it into your heart and then re-transmitting it as a healing energy.

Dawn is becoming that for me. A light that transforms me in the morning and a light that I want to pass on to others.