My students focus on Metta and Dukkha these ten weeks. I have been doing so since November. What did I find out? That there is a small ball of fear motoring away in my lower body, it probably started during adolescence. What to do about it? No idea yet. Bring more awareness to it until I hit a good idea. Unpack the problem bit by bit. I think it has to do with relationships so:
I am now ready to move onto another subject of focus. Bringing awareness to the relationship with the Other it is going to be. It is one thing to bring present moment awareness to oneself when one is alone (which I am a lot), or when one is sitting in meditation (which I am a lot), or in a counselling situation (which I love), bringing minute to minute awareness to interaction with Others is an entire other ball game.
I tend to lose myself in the Other. This is not difficult; the Other is immensely fascinating to me. Thus today the experiment will start. I have already noticed that I completely lost awareness when I was waiting for someone who had promised me an appointment but did not deliver. I was irritated and full of judgement. I had to deal with innocent receptionists and I treated them badly. Voila, the first chance was missed gloriously.
Now I am in the library, surrounded by European tourists who treat the library as a cafe. They have loud Skype conversations, have long chats and play music on their computers. I find them completely rude, stupid even. There is no way in the world I can get over myself (or them) and I am in a very bad mood.
I know a guy who is like that on a full time basis, like me at the moment; he finds fault in others, especially when it comes to following the rules. He even has a blog that is dedicated to the faults of others. He painstakingly points out mistakes in newspapers and magazines, in politicians and other leaders... It is the most boring blog I have ever laid eyes on. And I am like that at the moment. Someone rescue me from the noisy Europeans and most of all: from myself.
Okay, I try to "bring space to the moment" as Eckhard Tolle calls it. I have completely forgotten what that is supposed to mean. I end up yelping to the self-confident boys and girls: "This is a library, people are trying to work here." I remember myself at that age. I was exactly the same. Arrogant and a knowitall.
It worked! My angry words. They are silent in a high-school-class-sudden-silence kinda way. They try to get away with whispering and look at me every five seconds or so.
I bring awareness to this and suddenly have a laugh.
What an assholes, all of us, them and I.
I think I need to read this book:
And here is the boring blokes blog: (it's in Dutch, sorry, but you'll get the idea by just looking at it.)
http://vanwelzen.blogspot.com.au/
Sleep well all! Zzzzzzzzzz
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