Foreverness

I find myself in a low-energy mind state this week. I feel sad. I am intellectually aware that this is the let-down after weeks--months, really--of constant vigilance to maintain my sanity through everything that has gone on. But the understandings of the mind is of very little use to my heart, which only feels the sadness and is convinced that it is entirely real. What is of particular interest to me is that my heart seems to believe that any mind state I am currently in will last forever. I will always be sad. I know this isn't true; I even have the evidence of just a few days ago, when I was quite content, as counterevidence.

It doesn't help any that I fell apart a little bit toward the end of all that activity and since then; nothing major, I forgot to pack a few things I needed for the Portland trip, I seem to have misplaced my favorite sweatshirt, little things like that. I, who am usually so meticulous. And of course my mind seizes on this as an example of my ongoing dissolution, not an aberration, never mind the ample evidence to the contrary. When I am tired, there is a part of my mind that is quick to whisper in my ear, "failure, failure, failure."

One of the most significant benefits of meditation, though, is that on a daily basis I get to see the mind bring forward thoughts and feelings that have no basis in fact. They arise and pass away. When I give no credence to these, they do not stay. It is only when I cling to them, when I believe them, that they have any meaning at all. Just as the wisdom of experience taught me to put no faith into the existence of either the Bogey man or the tooth fairy so, too, do all of these phantoms arise and pass away if I do not give them life through my belief.

Is this easy? No, not always. But when I check in with my life and know that it is a good one, when I look into my heart and know I am fundamentally a good person, I am able to bit by bit let go of my delusions and live in the freedom of now.