Control through Letting Go

The great thing about blogs is you can write pretty much whatever you want. Whatever thoughts are popping up in the mind can be translated onto the computer screen. I find there is something quite therapeutic in that - there is a sense of freedom and joy in releasing the thoughts from the mind into text. The fact that other people read or at least scan through what has been written is also a joy. Any comments on a post are even more exciting - somebody is so interested in what I have to say, they’ve taken the time to reply. Wonderful.

Right now, I'm sitting on a very comfortable chair in a warm, slightly humid morning overlooking a green lush lawn, with a lake in the distance. I’ll post a picture up if I remember. :) I’ve spent the last 15 minutes or so in choiceless awareness. I sat and found myself looking at the beautiful scenery, listening to the birds, the sound of a closing door and the footsteps of other people. Every now and then, thoughts came up about a variety of different things, I can’t even remember what, and then went back into the sights and sounds around.

When the desire to control attention ceases, relaxation arises more naturally. Meditation is often considered to be a controlled attention, a deliberate focus of awareness onto a chosen experience. You can only be naturally yourself in choiceless awareness, when you are not trying to gain something from your life. The constant desire to improve, to be better, to be healthier becomes a burden, stifling the very life that you wanted to improve. The desire for happiness can be the greatest burden, with the constant questioning ‘am I happy?’. Once you begin to appreciate that you are not the controller, there is no central entity that consciously makes decisions, but thought naturally springs up and creates action, you are no longer responsible is the usual sense of the word. You can sit back and watch the show.

Sometimes I feel annoyed and tired. Sometimes I feel happy and very much alive. That's life.