I think, generally, we are looking for several things from our life. We all wish to experience satisfaction and peace of mind, we wish to be energized and have a sense of direction, we wish to feel balanced, and we wish to sense fullness and warmth. All else is “life contents”and comes and goes…..
Instead what we tend to experience are dis-satisfaction, anxiety, lack of energy, loss of direction, imbalance, some level of emptiness, and a sense of living in a cold world.
Many of us spend much time and money on trying to right this problem, but it just seems to reoccur time and time again…… we look outside ourselves, to psychology, religion, things, loved ones etc, to find the answer to our suffering.
In fact, the difference between this wished for experiencing and our actual experiencing is a process that is going on in our mind, and if we come to understand it, we can begin the road to the life experience we long for.
A chant which was written in the 5th century says:
“Just let go now of clinging mind, and everything will go back in balance”
So what is this mind process which steals our calm and balance?
Here is one persons thoughts on the matter….. (and as William James would have said “if it works, use it, if it doesn’t, throw it in the waste bin”.
– The brain/mind itself has no muscles to tense up and hold onto things with. It is soft grey matter…..
– The brain/mind needs muscles to hold on to feelings once they are “past tense”, otherwise those past tense feelings would simply float by like clouds in the sky, with the mind simply flowing in the present.
– The brain/mind needs muscles to hold on to imagined and concocted “future tense” feelings, otherwise those future tense feelings would simply float away like clouds in the sky, with the mind simply continuing to flow in the present.
– The brain/mind uses the bodies muscles (which are part of its own system….. the body/mind) to grasp and hang (clinging) onto past tense, and future tense feelings and attitudes.
This may be why yoga and relaxing can help a person to let go of those feelings…. even temporarily.
– The brain/mind uses this bodily tension to hold onto hurt, anger, envy, and all its barriers and walls that it builds for its “self-protection”.
– The de-construction (of these walls) of one of these self-protection processes can begin, either with working with the body to release those tensions, or it can begin with working with the mind to unravel the root of the feelings.
In the end, both need to be dealt with, if this body/brain/mind is to stop the grasping process.
It is my firm sense, that stopping the grasping/protection process is the answer to living a balanced satisfied life.
Reality is Dharma 