Deep feeling fascination
Well, I had a talk with one of my teachers today that was something of a wake-up call (he's good with those). Yet again, I have been fascinated by fascination.
It is so easy to find something to attach to. What are you good at? Dancing? Singing? Arguing? Seducing? Writing a blog? Whatever it is, you can become fascinated by it and attached to continued success with it. Like a drug, you need to keep increasing the dose to feel good from it. Or, what are you bad at? What frustrates you more than anything else in this world? You can become fascinated with that too, wrapped up in the story of your inferiority, deriving a perverse pleasure from the idea that someday you will achieve the impossible goal - or perhaps, from the idea that you are a miserable wretch who never will.
Lately my fascination has been with meditation and chi. Yes, I am good at working with chi. Very good, in fact. So good that it becomes a roadblock and a high. I can make myself stoned just with the power of my thoughts. And even when I avoid doing that, the high finds other ways to penetrate my consciousness by taking other forms to fascinate me with. Only in rare moments of true, deep clarity do I escape the siren's call and just open to the raw beauty of existence.
What does it take to truly drop the ego and detach from everything? To lose obsessive fascination, and develop the ability to just be and enjoy?
It is so easy to find something to attach to. What are you good at? Dancing? Singing? Arguing? Seducing? Writing a blog? Whatever it is, you can become fascinated by it and attached to continued success with it. Like a drug, you need to keep increasing the dose to feel good from it. Or, what are you bad at? What frustrates you more than anything else in this world? You can become fascinated with that too, wrapped up in the story of your inferiority, deriving a perverse pleasure from the idea that someday you will achieve the impossible goal - or perhaps, from the idea that you are a miserable wretch who never will.
Lately my fascination has been with meditation and chi. Yes, I am good at working with chi. Very good, in fact. So good that it becomes a roadblock and a high. I can make myself stoned just with the power of my thoughts. And even when I avoid doing that, the high finds other ways to penetrate my consciousness by taking other forms to fascinate me with. Only in rare moments of true, deep clarity do I escape the siren's call and just open to the raw beauty of existence.
What does it take to truly drop the ego and detach from everything? To lose obsessive fascination, and develop the ability to just be and enjoy?
posted by Dr. J at 18:19
2 Comments:
I don't have the answer for that. It is one of the things I warn about on the path. We can become so fascinated with anything out of the ordinary. The ego constantly seeks something that it can cling to to further it's belief that it is the owner of the temple and not the caretaker. The danger is always there. Many get so fascinated with new talents or skills that they lose their way completely.
It has been my experience that practice, practice, practice is what is needed, and to remember to be gentle, but firm with the ego, simply bring it back to the task at hand over and over again, like one would deal with a wayward child.
...Z
Zareba,
That's great advice, thanks you. My ego is certainly an expert at intensity and distraction!
Another teacher asked me an excellent question yesterday. "Who would you be", she asked, "without intensity?"
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