And welcome to Friday! Your topic is below, it’s all on the subject that your mind is not your enemy. Topic first, then my commentary on it.
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Your mind is just a mind. Apparently it produces thoughts. Some you like, some you don’t.
So what? What would be talking about the mind and the way it works? What judges the mind? What comments and analyses and evaluates your thoughts?
Exactly. The mind itself. Therefore: Don't make the mind your enemy.
If fact, if you fully rest in the presence of this amazing moment, you can see there is no mind. By being fully present just in this moment, you can find the aliveness of existence: No mind needed, no "me" required.
Just be still now. Here’s no mind, no thinking, no nothing but eternal contentment.
Let's get less interested in the mind and stuff that isn't even alive here and now.
Would you like to see what is really alive in this moment?
Go ahead and do it! Always just in this moment.
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I know I’ve mentioned this before but I used to live for the weekends.
I think I spent more time on week days staring out the window of my office thinking about what I was going to do Saturday and Sunday than I actually lived when I got there … if that made any sense.
I know for sure too that I would spend a big chunk of Sunday dreading the coming Monday. Usually I could keep it to a few hours in the late afternoon but sometimes it took over most of Sunday, from about 1pm onwards.
I was in the weekend - the very thing I lived for, the thing I dreamt about all week - and it was miserable because all my attention was on the fact that it was ending.
Your attitude shapes everything.
Your mind shapes every single thing.
The rule, always, is: what you put your attention on, grows.
You start to realise this, see the negativity of your own mind and start a little struggle with it.
“Change me mind, change the world,” you hear somewhere and so you get going, trying to hack and smother and bash the mind into submission.
What is simpler, and requires no force whatsoever, is to step beyond the mind.
Get very present and the mind gets very small.
It only has power because you give it attention.
When you take the half-step back you have the fullness of awareness and experience, in which the mind is a minor player.
You can get so good at this that it seems that the mind disappears.
Funny huh? By not trying to change the mind, by ignoring it, by putting your attention somewhere else - the experience of the presence of Now - the mind ends its grip on you.
By ignoring the mind you bring about its end.
Hurrah!
You see how this works? Great. Now you gotta practice this. Close your eyes and get good at getting that half-step back.
When you’re going about your day, try and stay present. Try and maintain that awareness and presence. Realise when you’re getting lost in your mind, completely swallowed up by a story or a drama.
Step back once again. Reset. Go again. You’ll get good at this, promise. And then you have true freedom from blind and reactive anger, frustration, depression, jealousy, worry, anxiety … all that stuff.
Never struggle again!
Go well!
Arjuna
PS.
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