What is Going On?
“What, me worry?”
--Alfred E. Newman
There are times when we do not recognize that we are
worrying. You might even say that we are the worrying when we don't take note
of it. We even say "I am worried" in a fully incarnate identification with worry. We simply do not notice that worrying is the case. In a manner of
speaking, worrying is what is going on, i.e., worrying is the experience or
that which is the case. But noticing that worrying is or more accurately was
going on could become the experience thus displacing the former occupant, the
worrying. Noticing that worrying is the case is not worrying. It is seeing that
worrying was the case. A space between the thoughts that were the
worrying and noticing that worrying was occurring is also a temporal distance
from the worrying, making the worrying an object, the past, and not the
subject, the present. The worrier is now objectified and hence rendered, hopefully
for more than a brief moment, a corpse.
A new subject or self is born that is--even if it is just for a
split-second--an observant self that sees the former worrying. The worrying is
now an object. The noticing always takes place in the present rendering the
former moment spatially and temporally distant--a thing of the past. This, in
Yogic and Buddhist circles, is what is termed "recollection" or
"remembering," more often termed "mindfulness." (The
Sanskrit word is smrti the Pali word is sati.) More to come…
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to comment on the posts with a view toward the alleviation of the suffering of all sentient beings. If you are sincere in that wish, then your comments are welcome. Thank you.