Wakeful Contentment: Everything is OK– You, Your Situation, The World

We hear a good deal about “being awake” and “being present” and “being enlightened” and “mindfulness” — or at least I do.  In places where my mind hangs out (books, twitter, facebook and forums) people toss those terms around a lot — they’re prevalent.  I contemplate this a lot since like most everyone else the outer world (samsara) keeps stimulating my own inner drama and all I want is peace and happiness like everyone else.

I have to keep coming back to it.  To what?  I’m talking about that sense of well-being that comes from mindfulness and presence.

I love that sense of well-being!  That wakeful contentment!  I call it “contented happiness” because that state of being seems to be core or the baseline state once layers of  mental ‘this and that’ thin and create an opening for that state to shine through.  Its there, it’s always been there–just like the quote on mind training from Ajahn Chah (quote below) states.

And just like  Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche  says, “We are so familiar with the tumultuous reactivity of our mind that mental chaos feels quite normal.  Opposing that or the opposite polarity to that mental chaos is joy, that profound sense of well-being that comes from being in a completely wakeful state.

You know this state, right?  You must have had moments like I’m going to describe and hopefully days, weeks or months–perhaps years or a lifetime if we’re really on the path.

We drop the anxious chatter in our mind. We release a big sigh and think, “Wow, everything is really OK: me, my situation, the world.”

This becomes my new goal, my new mantra and a feeling that I intend to expand and send out to the world.  I actually read those words that are in quotes above in a book and every level of body and mind did cartwheels and acrobatics across the room!

YES!  I know this feeling!  this truth!  Until now, I’ve called it “contented happiness” but I do like the way it is expressed simply and recognizably:  “Wow, everything is really OK–me, my situation, the world.”

The Quote: Training this mind… actually there’s nothing much to this mind. It’s simply radiant in and of itself. It’s naturally peaceful.

Why the mind doesn’t feel peaceful right now is because it gets lost in its own moods. There’s nothing to mind itself. It simply abides in its natural state, that’s all. That sometimes the mind feels peaceful and other times not peaceful is because it has been tricked by these moods. The untrained mind lacks wisdom. It’s foolish. Moods come and trick it into feeling pleasure one minute and suffering the next. Happiness then sadness. But the natural state of a person’s mind isn’t one of happiness or sadness.

The mind is naturally calm like a leaf that is NOT being blown around

 This experience of happiness and sadness is not the actual mind itself, but just these moods which have tricked it. The mind gets lost, carried away by these moods with no idea what’s happening. And as a result, we experience pleasure and pain accordingly, because the mind has not been trained yet. It still isn’t very clever. And we go on thinking that it’s our mind which is suffering or our mind which is happy, when actually it’s just lost in its various moods.

The point is that really this mind of ours is naturally peaceful. It’s still and calm like a leaf that is not being blown about by the wind. But if the wind blows then it flutters. It does that because of the wind. And so with the mind it’s because of these moods – getting caught up with thoughts. If the mind didn’t get lost in these moods it wouldn’t flutter about. If it understood the nature of thoughts it would just stay still. This is called the natural state of the mind.

— (Ajahn Chah, Training This Mind)

The Law of Attraction and The Secret have there place, BUT…..  there is, I feel, greater accomplishment in enhancing a state of  acceptance of things just as they are. We stop reaching for what we want. We stop trying to control our comfort zone. This letting go leaves us feeling peaceful and optimistic. We have not strategized to attain this state.   It’s more like the absence of trying to manipulate or influence our circumstance.

PS — currently transiting Saturn is conjunct natal Jupiter in my 4th house.  I’m waiting for word about an apartment to open up for me.  It could be any time but waiting is challenging.  I can see how Saturn right on Jupiter is creating a delay (Saturn often is though to carry with it the archetype of ‘delay’).  The 4th house of course is about home –THE home.  This blog post is like … well, physician heal thyself.  LOL  Accepting things as they are while I wrestle with the strong inner desire to move.  I trust astrology and that Saturn delay is beneficial/Jupiter for my future housing situation.  Meanwhile, everything is really OK–me, my situation, the world.  🙂

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Karma, Ground Consciousness, Habituation and Meditation – mindfulness can create happiness

Karmic imprints.  They accumulate and are latent in ground consciousness or base mind.

This area of psyche gathers up or collects  (through the many layers of it’s nature)   all the karmic latencies that are gathered over eons of lifetimes.

And the responses to those tendencies create more imprints and here in this reality, on the earth,  they are able to be stimulated.

I used to think that we were completely in control of moods via our thoughts–and while that is partially true, the karmic imprints that settle into consciousness awaken in us as experiences of suffering or experiences of happiness which sometimes are seemingly out of our control.  I’ve been thinking about  karmic latency and habitual tendencies.  Do we say something like, ‘Oh that’s just how I am an I can’t help that‘ or what?  Just how does it all work anyway?   These thoughts that follow are influenced by Buddhist views by the way and they make perfect sense (to me).

Positive or negative karma ,it is said, does not always  immediately express itself. These karmic latencies resting within ground consciousness can arise later, even in future lifetimes.

Sometimes I can correlate karmic events to the Nodes of the Moon (North Node, South Node)  in an astrology chart–imprints remain in ground consciousness to ripen under the appropriate circumstances.  And we can correlate that to aspects to the birth Nodes and the transiting Lunar Nodes.  Anyway…

Negative and positive qualities increase due to habitual patterns–if a person tends to be angry again and again then becomes habituated to anger, it creates an increase of anger-latency in the mind.   The same is true with positive qualities such as love and compassion.  These qualities (either positive or negative) creates the foundation for the mind–ground consciousness.   Even in remembering some experience of the past, the remembering of it strengthens the latency.

For these reasons, we should be ever-aware and mindful–otherwise our disturbing emotions gradually increase from day-to-day and lifetime-to-lifetime.

We can create mindfulness latencies in the ground conspicuousness (habitual pattern of mindfulness).

Through meditation we can create positive latencies of love, wisdom and compassion which does overcome negative imprints when meditation is increased to focus on that love, wisdom and compassion.

We are born with a particular proclivities or latent tendencies developed in previous lifetimes.  We see this within seconds, minutes, hours of a baby’s birth.  Not all babies have the same newborn tendencies—some are restless, some are peaceful, etc.  Some children are naturally very kind due to positive latencies developed and imprinted in previous lifetimes into their ground consciousness.  Other children are very aggressive due to their own latent tendencies.

Some people are unable to deny themselves their desires and cannot say no to themselves–others can deny themselves but have difficulty saying no to others. Yet, we can change through cultivation of mindfulness or being aware of our tendencies and developing positive virtues where needed.

It seems like another lifetime ago when I asked higher mind/spirit guides [_____ fill in your own preferred word (s) here] a question. (Divination)

I really wanted to know why we were here and what we’re doing here and what the whole bottom-line point to our lives here were about.

And I was told that we are here to develop virtue.  And now, many years later, I see how true that answer was; although at the time I wasn’t satisfied with it.

With the correct understanding and with mindfulness in life and developing good qualities through  meditation we will be able to develop new latencies, new habitual  patterns, new tendencies.

Is that easy?  Is being mindful and conscious of our latent habitual tendencies at all times easy?  It’s as easy as that — or as difficult.  It depends on us.

We can develop positive or negative tendencies throughout life!  They come and they go depending upon our own awareness and contribution to the habitual patterns.

Our experience of happiness is based upon ground consciousness no matter which realm we are in.  Creating karmic imprints in the present reality results in experiencing their results in the future.

Just like a child who goes to school and studies hard creates an imprint in the mind that allows the child to later on do something with the imprint like become a teacher or a doctor.  If there was no type of imprint to start with (no schooling, no education) there would be no possibility of becoming the teacher in the future.

Well, this is all I have time to write on the topic for the moment.  I hope some of these words will find their way to the right person at the right time out there in cyber world and in doing so be helpful to that other.  

 

What Should We Know About Our Moods? The 2 of Swords Answers!

I asked about moods—what should we know about our own moods?  That was the question and for insight and guidance, I turned to the tarot.  This time I thought to use a deck that I don’t often use, The Connolly deck.  Just look at the image of the 2 of Swords!  That’s the card I drew.  It looks like those two guys are just standing there not knowing what to do—almost as if they’re saying which one do we choose?

Swords are often associated with thinking and the 2 of Swords about choice.  I so love how these things work! I ask about moods and what we should know and I get the card that represents CHOICE and more to the point NON-CHOICE.

What I’m inspired to say next is that the insight is this:  if we don’t actually make a choice, we’re drifting and anything can happen with our mood.  The first thing that comes along can trigger us into some wild or unexpected response.

However, moods seem to be about choice—at least as far as the information that this tarot card is bringing us.  Pick a sword, but for heaven’s sake… PICK!  Before you get stabbed by someone else who has a sword.  Well, that’s probably too graphic but it could be better said this way.  Without making a choice about what our mood will be—such as pensive, contemplative, quiet, peaceful, giggly, grateful, or you name it—we will bump up against someone else who has chosen a sword or made a decision about their mood and we can become influenced in some way.  Maybe someone has unconsciously (or even consciously) chosen an anger mood—they have their sword.  And we without our own who are still standing there not haven chosen are exposed to the mood of others.

Bottom line is to remember to choose a mood.   “Today I choose to be grateful for everything—no matter what it is.”  Or “Today I choose to harbor a mood of kindness to guide me through my day.”

The problem with our mood comes when we have not made a choice—that’s what the 2 of Swords is showing us here in answer to the question.

What we should know about our moods is that we should choose one@!  Choosing a mood helps us to be aware of our thoughts and to maintain that awareness.

The oracle seems to be saying, what mood do you want silly?  So choose it already!  (Then use awareness to maintain it.)