Any sense of agency I have is illusory. There is a self that has been programmed by my biology, my culture, my family. I am stepping outside of it from time to time, but it is still driven by that programming and the central drive of that programming is anger.
I can feed the peace, the happiness and joy. The mind is telling a story, a series of events. If I watch it, there's a possibility it will settle into a different rhythm. The Buddhist story is that these are the natural and essential qualities. I can't attest to whether this is true, but it's certainly a more pleasant story that the one where we are essentially angry and discordant.
In the meantime though, my most normal patterns are towards anger. And this anger is ultimately very rewarding, or I wouldn't keep going back to it like a rat on a wheel. It's my quickest and surest path to dopamine.
After going for an hour long walk, my meditations are focussing on that energy in the tailbone. I had a couple of interesting hours sitting in this energy, feeling bliss, feeling my anxiety and aversion to bliss, trying to hold it in equanimity by shifting between the bliss and open awareness. I started to feel that liquid warmth, even some uncoiling.
Is this what we lost from our Sapien past. This wonderful feeling around out pelvic floor back when we used to be more of a squatting sitting around species?
It didn't last. Eventually I started to feel a restlessness, a boredom, an urge to get it all done with. But the insight that remains is that this self really doesn't have as much agency as I want to believe. There is this self that is mostly motivated by angry parents, a greedy, hierarchical culture. I will never know if humans are basically good or basically bad, but I do know that when I feel good I am more generous and kinder to others.
In one meditation today, I thought about my family, and felt such anger towards them. That dissipated and for a while I felt good. When I though of each and everyone of them I had an entirely different feeling towards them. When I was a different person, they were different people, I was willing to cut them more slack. My perceptions of people are changed by how I feel about myself.
Nearing the end of day 2. I've watched a teaching by Mingyur Rinpoche on finding basic wisdom in "defilements." It feels like the entire weekend has been leading to this. There are five defilements, hatred, craving, ignorance, pride and envy. His meditation technique is to ask "what do I really want." It's possible that the answer to this will often be surface and related to these states of mind, states he believes have been created by culture. But if we keep asking we will find our true nature, our deep, true essence, which is pure, pristine, beautiful. Down there we want happiness, love, peace. And if we ask long, enough and deep enough we will get there Don't grasp at it, just get there and be there.
This is what the last two hours of my meditation will be.
And after that, the insight.
Yes my superficial, man, woman or parent-made desires, are strong. Maybe even stronger right now than the desires of my wisest level of self. But I am extremely fortunate to know that, and even more fortunate to have a reasonably well-worn path back to wisdom. I can look at my messy home and remember that this is happening because I'm letting my cravings take over again. I can sit with them and I can sit with my peace and get the energy and wisdom back that I need. I can look at the scale and realize that I need to spend an extra hour a day sitting with my healthiest drives. I know this.
And I know I can do it.
