As a full fledged product of 'the system', the concept of being mindful was initially quite confusing to me. Even after I thought I 'got it' the seductive pull of the matrix kept, and still keeps, pulling me back into the polar opposite of mindfulness.
The best description I have found of the process of being engulfed by, and lost within, the system is Lao Tzu's famous "Ten Thousand Things". Those three words, and his Tao Te Ching, so aptly describes the whirling dervish of (modern) insanity and the tearing apart of our 'self' in servitude to the distractions of the master of insanity.
The following essay by Joe Withrow, aka Joe Galt, does an excellent job of describing the art and practice of Mindfulness. At some point over the next few days I urge you to devote ten minutes of your time and fall into Joe's piece.
Many years ago I was walking down the street thinking about something that had been bothering me when a thought suddenly exploded into my headed. It was a turning point in my life, though I still continued to wrestle with my problems and myself for many years afterward. It is one thing to understand something, another entirely to embody it fully and then apply it in a practical manner.
My personal revelation can be summed up in two brief sentences. Fear was the foundational basis of all my dysfunction. And my fear often came disguised as anything, everything, but fear. Simple enough to comprehend when seated in front of the computer reading this, much more difficult when engulfed within fear and all its various permutations and manifestations.
The following essay by Unlawful Justice not only speaks about fear, but how to work through our fear so we may learn and grow from our experienced fear.
With the concluding installment of On The Beach's six essay series (with much more to come we are promised) the overriding theme is one of sole and ultimate personal responsibility, a favorite theme of mine as well.
Regardless of the outside influences brought to bear upon you and me, we alone are responsible for the choices we make as well as the consequences that flow from those choices......in this life and beyond. While ignorance may be bliss, the repercussions from such a myopic and narcissistic choice (and let there be no doubt ignorance and narcissism is our choice alone) ripple outward and onward forever.
