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monkey mind

lookit the monkey driving the bus!

After finally curing myself of my compulsion to argue with reality (pausing while ya’ll laugh your asses off at that…) I have discovered I’ve just transferred this habit to arguing with people about whether or not THEY are arguing with reality. …yes, I know what that sounds like when I say it out loud, but at least I know I’m doing it. Ever since I came back from my retreat my groovy peaceful has been tested as I get caught up in these debates with people being irrational. Inside my head I am shouting OH MY GOD I AM NOT A TREE I AM NOT A TREE, and while this gets me some points for self awareness, it’s really not going well in the outside world.

But I had a great insight during meditation; a paradigm shift that has cured me of arguing with others about their arguing with reality

Read More »lookit the monkey driving the bus!

ToV 22 – Paradoxical Dating

This chapter opens with a series of lines under what I’d call the category of: f*ing let it go.

If you want to become straight,
let yourself be crooked.
If you want to become full,
let yourself be empty.

And a goodly handful of phrases like that, every one of them a mantra of: stop arguing with reality stop arguing with reality. I love the second part of these lines: let yourself…. If you want something, and here’s the paradoxical part, you have to let go and let yourself be the thing you fear first. It isn’t the pursuit of the thing that gets you what you need, it’s in the letting go of whatever you’re fighting against.

The very last line of this chapter hit me hard, and was what I took with me into my mediation this morning.Read More »ToV 22 – Paradoxical Dating

ToV 20 – On Sass-Monkeys and Seagulls

Taoists are sass-monkeys. There’s a misconception that spiritual people are always wise, aloof, subdued. There is something to be said for the wisdom of being able to see the humour in things; and being able to talk smack to those still talking themselves too seriously. This whole chapter is a comparison of “regular folk” and what it means to be immersed in the Tao.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp:
I alone am dull.
Other people have purpose;
I alone don’t know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

Now, if you put that on a resume, you wouldn’t get a lot of call backs, and that’s kinda the point. Lao Tzu is making fun of what people value, what they think is important, in part perhaps to illustrate that a pursuit of the Tao is not an ego-driven thing, most people will not admire you for it. I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

But he’s trying to help you. The chapter opens with: Stop thinking, and end your problems (pausing while all my nerd readers get their gruntles on for that one!). Read More »ToV 20 – On Sass-Monkeys and Seagulls

ToV 14 – the Tao of Ranting?

I had a good rant the other day, about The Secret …and the Celestine Prophecy. I don’t get my knickers in a twist about much these days, but the cerebralization of the spiritual, the ego-greed- material commercialization of what is an innate human need makes me a little bonkers (and yes, the fact I get ranty about that is part of the stuff I’m still working on). So, I’m really digging a line from the next chapter in the Tao Te Ching:

You can’t know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.

When you’re “in the Tao” you’re in the flow, and it’s easy; there’s no resistance, because you’re not resisting. That’s not to say it’s not work, that it’s always smooth sailing; there will be rough waters and work to do. Challenging your own bullshit, getting out of your own way, is sometimes a painful, tumultuous, process. But most of the suffering comes from your own resistance to the process.

Sometimes resistance comes in sneaky guise (that monkey mind is a clever clever monkey). One of the sneaky ways to offer resistance to that “wisdom” of “where you come from” is the surface approach to the spiritual process. Read More »ToV 14 – the Tao of Ranting?

ToV 10 – Chill Sistah!

There’s something about that hint of fall in the air, that gentle reminder summer is wrapping up, nudging you to quit goofing around and get back on with your life.

Had me a wee freak out the other day, tried to take my notebook down to the park to add to the zombie romance, instead found my head swimming with All The Things that I had to do, wanted to do, needed to do. Some of which were new and scary and overwhelming. My stab at fiction abandoned, I instead started making notes on all those things, trying to fit them in some set of priorities, what to focus on next, how to get around that obstacle.

Just getting it out of my head and on paper gave me some perspective and put all that tumble rolling around into something that fell into some manner of separateness on paper. It was no longer All The Things, All At Once. But just a bunch of things, all with their own varying needs and timelines.

Then I read this:Read More »ToV 10 – Chill Sistah!