sati-blog

This is the third part in a series of  entries from an old journal of mine that surfaced recently.

Observations on the mind, habits and the purging of impurities

Our minds are constantly processing and cognizing current sensations i.e. hear a noise and deem it annoying/or disturbing. Out of habit the mind clings and grasps to these events, constantly producing feelings of craving and aversion.

The act of deeming the noise “annoying” triggers the body to feel aversion. This feeling or vibration then attempts to propogate or feed itself through a train of thoughts or habits that result in more energy being channeled into it.  So to continue with the example, once we “deem” the noise to be disturbing, we just can’t seem to get it out of our head, we can’t focus our awareness anywhere else.

However, if we can recognize this habit, the minds begins to settle down, and breaks the flow of energy that sustains our “annoyance”. It then becomes more sharp and pure, it starts to just experience current sensations as they are, but the habit of creating cravings and aversion sill lingers. As a result a current sensation may instead trigger strong memories or feelings from the past in order to initiate the desired result.

If these memories/events that manifest are once again just observed and energy is not given to them, the mind will continue to purge itself of “annoyances”.

An example of the process could be.. A dog barks very early in the morning while one is meditating. However, let’s say we just note that a dog barked and there is no reaction to an initial instant of annoyance. The habitual mind may then recall an instant where a dog barking early in the morning woke us up.  If we again do not react then the mind may recall a time where we had an arguement with a neighbour in regards to their barking dog.  If we now react, we’ll find that a whole new series of thoughts/attention and energy now flow in order to feed this habit and entity of “annoyance”.

However, if we can continually recognize this destructive pattern, we might be able to limit the amount of energy that goes into sustaining this habitual tendancy.  Eventually one might purge the mind of past aversions/traumas and the imprint of annoyance will become weak as it is not being fed. Eventually it may lose its hold on our minds entirely.

~ may 2004 (slightly edited)