Rope, Wind, Escape, Binge

It's interesting to be coming off this long flu recovery. I've been sick for about 2 weeks. One week of fever. One week of cough and low energy. I am also here in Kansas where it's getting cold. And that cold is sapping energy and effort for me, too.

 

But I see this pattern! And I'm excited to finally see the pattern. Rope. Wind. Escape. Binge.

 The first two are things that happened to me (external), but that I'm a willing participant in, somehow. I feed it. I let it take over and dominate my narrative... because then I can get the escape. And then that creates urges that I then either succumb to or grab. The urge to escape. And the use of binging to escape.

I'm excited to finally see the pattern. Old me sort of saw the pattern, but loved to justify it and make up stories. Stories that I deserved these shiny (but shitty) escapes. Stories that this is normal, justified. Stories that I was doing better than other people so that's okay (shitty behavior justification machine). I still make up those stories, but a part of me is very good at watching me make up those stories. So I'm able to see these patterns. That's a big step in discernment, insight.

I also have to admit that I'm pretty lousy at remembering to use alternatives. Isn't Jhana something I have developed? Jhana is a good "instead"; it is a wholesome and heedful escape, into concentration, with equanimity. But I decide to wallow in Netflix or chess or porn. Which disquiet the mind but, moreover, are exhausting (not restorative, not restful). I can do better. I hope I can remember that I can do better.

QUOTE: Comparison, concentrated and unconcentrated mind

I spent a long time (years) thinking I had developed a concentrated mind. I had falsely convinced myself.

I shifted toward an attitude of noticing the difference. Between concentrated and unconcentrated. And this helped me (1) learn how to use that concentration and (2) how to check if I was falsely convincing myself I was concentrated.

It turned out that what my old self thought was concentration was just a pleasant state of escapist mind. It felt different. It felt special. But it was still quite entangled with the world and my own concepts.

The real concentrated state has several forms (it's a region, more than a point), but in all instances has a sharper alertness combined with a easeful awareness (especially good if grounded in the body. It can be broad or narrow, depending on (if) a frame of reference used). It is without sensual greed, aversion, sloth, restlessness, or grandiose identification. It's also not trying to be something that one saw on TV or in a magazine ad or even in a sutta. It might take effort to get into a state of concentration, but once one is in it, the effort is either minimal (Jhana1) or none (Jhana2, internal assurance).

 It has a different feel from the everyday mind which is always striving and stirring, often feeding.

"The point is simply that you train the mind to be centered and then compare it to the state of mind that isn't centered, so that you can see how they differ, how the mind that has attained concentration and then withdraws to contemplate matters of the world and the Dhamma differs from the mind that hasn't attained concentration."

Ajaan Thate

"Buddho", by Phra Ajaan Thate Desaransi, translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 2 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/thate/buddho.html .