Hey all.
I've been away from reddit for a while. I've been busy being pretty immersed in my experiences. I was having a lot of social interactions and I find that nothing else has quite the magnetic pull that they do, especially intense and emotional ones, and I got pretty well sucked into them. So I spent the last few months thinking primarily about my job (which underwent big changes), my hobbies (which are quite illuminating and exciting to me but can also be truly superficial), my relationships (which also were shaken up recently), politics (one human being has 150 billion dollars and I don't have healthcare - that's probably not okay), etc. I experienced a lot of anxiety and found a lot of subtle and passive hindrances that I'd been blind to during these last few months. But I also learned a lot about what makes me happy, calm, mindful, and mindless. I've undoubtedly spent a lot of time with truly meaningless and mindless things and have spent virtually no time actively practicing wisdom. This is not my first experience with a period like this and I have no good reason to believe it will be my last.
Recently, obviously, being here writing this, I've begun to return to a place of contemplation and meditation and, looking back on the last few months, I have a lot to learn and investigate and unpack. It's like I was acting out a film, and now I've taken the role of film critic, except my goal is less about analyzing the content of film and more about deducing the nature of film and video from the footage available.
First on that list of things to analyze is a lingering anxiety about how easily I slipped into a state of very minimal contemplation and meditation and of worldly absorption. I didn't so much as decide to spend a long while lost in convention as I did simply not resist sliding quickly into it. I find that prolonged periods of introspection and practice exhaust me in one way, and immersive 'humaning' exhausts me in a different way, and the last decade has been my bouncing between them for periods of anywhere from a few months to a few years at a time.
Does anyone else experience this? Am I a puny spiritual weakling who cannot resist the temptation to become a mindless drone for more than a year at a time? Do these experiences happen on a different time scale for you? Have you developed techniques to deal with this? Do you consider spending some time mindless (as in, the antonym of mindful or aware) important or even vital to understanding reality? Or is it a sign or failure instead, and a waste of time or even detrimental? Or is it all about the way you spend such time?
And really I'd just be happy to get an update from everyone on what the water's like for them right now. Just dump some thoughts on me, especially u/nefandi, u/triumphantgeorge, and u/aesiranatman, but everyone else too.
Edit: I apologize if any of my wording here is careless. I trust most of you to be clever enough not to be mistaken by it. I'm a bit like a sleepy cat just woken up in the morning. I'll need a moment to regain my sharpness.
Great points as always.
To be clear, at no point during this whole experience did I ever lose any fundamental knowledge or vital wisdom. You could have grabbed me at any random and mundane moment and barked, "What is the nature of reality?" Or, "Who are you?" and my answer would've been no different than my answer right now.
Instead, I simply carry on with my human life as though I don't know any of that. So it's an important distinction, that the knowledge itself is not lost, and on a purely academic level, neither is the urgency or weight of that knowledge, and yet its place among my daily thoughts and actions and its power to inform my behavior waned substantially.
It's almost like falling back into an earlier stage of my spiritual development in which I was prone to complaining that I understood things intellectually but didn't feel them. Now, of course, those truths have become so deeply rooted that I have no such issue, and yet I've just spent a few months allowing that visceral 'feeling' of wisdom - the thing that spurs real action and practice - to fade away.
So, if I've explained myself well, you'll understand that my concern is one of something like discipline or consistency in the application and furthering of wisdom as opposed to any existential fear.
So my fear is not becoming mundane myself - that seems literally impossible, though becoming 99% mundane seems like a non-zero possibility albeit very unlikely anytime soon.
Originally commented by u/Utthana on 2018-07-22 18:55:54 (e2tnwqv)
It's a matter of habit and utility. I think having some practice may help here to change the habit. I either cast spells or honor and remember the old spells in a mini-ritual nearly daily. I also rest the body in healing attention and intention with and without the "fancy" visualizations. So with habits like that, there is no way for me to act "normal." On the other hand, even these activities can also become normal. Normality is not something that one should be inherently scared of.
Basically it comes down to: am I living a life I want to live? If not, can I add whatever is missing right now? If not, can I take one step in that direction? If not, why not? Usually I can at least take a step. If for some reason I didn't know what step to take, I'd contemplate what my step could be and figure it out.
In general resting in many kinds of different mental states or using them in a more active manner is something that happens often as a matter of habit and life utility. So for example, if something itches or I feel some slight pain, I know what to do. If I want some circumstance to lean a certain way, I know what to do. I can eat my food as "normal" or I can "bless" it first before eating it. I can poop on the pot as normal, or I can take that time to relax the body deeper than would have been normal. I can take a shower as usual, or I can use the healing water visualization. There are countless such opportunities.
Originally commented by u/mindseal on 2018-07-22 22:46:03 (e2tu9q0)
I am learning a lesson in the value of small, quiet, daily life rituals.
Thank you.
Originally commented by u/Utthana on 2018-07-23 02:20:48 (e2u56wd)