Just Keep Swimming

I find it interesting that whether the heart/mind is excited/ecstatic or afraid/anxious, the feeling in the body is the same.

The feeling in the body for either of these extremes is not pleasant. The mind gets obssessive and the body tenses up.

It is logical enough to understand that anger and fear are unhealthy, but excitement? That is more difficult to discern. There are many people in this world who believe that a life of excitement is a happy life. But is it really? Isn't it fraught with the same kind of tension that comes with anger or fear? When I write it down it seems more clear, but there is a part of me that, when excitement is experienced, tries to tell me that this is "good" and ok to dwell on. But when I dwell on it, I notice there is suffering in me.

The judging mind wants to say that excited feelings are good and ok and angry feelings are bad and not ok. But really, these are just natural phenomena that come and go due to causes and conditions.

I practice meditation so that the causes and conditions for the next moment are such that craving, anger and confusion are less likely to arise. But if they have arisen, it is because there were conditions to support their arising. What's done is done, and it is this way now. It can still be worked with now. Now my practice is to be kind to myself and keep making the effort to get to a point where these defilements are caught before they spiral out of control. Pema Chodron calls this the "shenpa." It is about noticing that slight hint of unease (the shenpa) that gets triggered by various events in order to catch ourselves in time to avoid falling back on old, unhelpful habits.

On Thursday, my teacher spoke of the pain and pleasure of waking up. Sometimes I feel like there is more anger in me now than there was before I started practicing, but in reality, I think that there actually is less. I just see it so much more clearly now. It is very painful to see! This deep work can really be painful. Sometimes it is hard to discern the benefit.