Follow up to "Set back in Behavior"

jessie70

A few weeks ago I had made a post about "Set backs in Behavior". I am very appreciative to the encouraging responses I received, and wanted to give a lil' update, but also, to share how I have reframed my thinking as moving along...

Progress has been real, and steady- but it's also painfully slow. I think I imagined a spiritual growth to happen suddenly, like an Oprah "Ah-Hah" moment-a-thon. Like I would be hit by a thunderbolt of revelation repeatedly and in a few months wake up serene and always poised and in control of myself. That my expectations of what life "on the path" would feel like was false. I'm quite sure I'm on the path these days, there is just a lot brush and gravel on my path! Sometimes it feels more like bushwhacking! Even when I'm struggling with my behavior, I'm still on the path. It occurred to me that:

When I'm in the middle of my own personality-hell, and feel like I'm way "off the path', I can now SEE the path off in the distance, and it's not as far away as I thought... I am starting to see a little walkway between where I am now, what I'm doing, and "the Way." I realize now that little walkway is is just like a tiny tributary leading to a greater river, actually... It's a path to the path, and therefore, in a sense, part of the path!

Sometimes seeing is all one is ready to do... the next step is change. I have just begun to change my responses, to pause and stop, but often, admittedly, probably more often than not, I'm just seeing it at this point. Just noticing- and accepting what I choose without beating oneself up - that is being on the path, too. And that my mind has been conditioned for many years, so that to some extent, I need to be patient, and while I can control my behavior, there is a certain amount of it that "is what it is". Not giving up responsibility- truly wanting to improve- but understanding that I won't always be making this happen by sheer force of will. Change will happen, to some extent, by watching, learning, abiding. This came as a big realization for me, something I wanted to share- especially if anyone else is struggling with wanting to control their behavior. :-)

Lee82

As you are encouraged to leave the past behind as it has already happened and cannot be changed, so the path changes too. There is no path to the path, only the path from where you are now to wherever it leads to. At any one moment in time you can move forward from where you are in the direction you want to be going. Relapses may happen but by the time they have happened they are already in the past. No point in thinking that you should be over there on that path, that path belongs to another time and place and represents what might have been.

jessie70

@Lee82- in regards to "there is no path to the path", I think there is common ground to what we are saying: I realized that I'm not expected to behave perfectly, always according to precepts to be be on the path. I am going to lose sight of where I am, and that is expected, and part of the journey... that is what I'm saying.

I also think it's helpful to learn from the past. I think it's unnatural to expect someone to abandon all thoughts of things that happened in the past- and I don't think it's smart or healthy to do so. There is a difference between living in the past, and learning from something that has happened- connecting the dots to where you are now. Especially when one changes their view from things happening "to them", to just "happening".

ThailandTom

I had to smile when I read about the Oprah moment, 'TA DAAAA!!' hehe. I am glad you are making progress though, to make the steps towards awakening you first need to realise that this is the path you need to walk, basically realise you are ignorant and suffering

The Dhamma, the path, the truth, w/e you want to call it isn't something you have to go running around for or exhaust yourself over. Just simply look at the feelings which arise in your mind. When the eye sees form, the ear meets sound etc, they all come to this one mind, the mind that knows. What happens then is that we perceive these things, if we like an object we see we experience pleasure, if it is something we dislike we experience displeasure, that is all there is to it. However you first need to start by knowing what 'like' and 'dislike' actually is when it arises, if we don't then concern and confusion will still be in the mind. "Oh there is nothing to this feeling of pleasure here, it is just a feeling that arises and passes away."

Lee82

I agree, of course it is helpful to learn from past experiences and to treat them as something that happened with no other mental connection to them e.g. regret. I was trying to say that you could view your current situation as the place that you are at now and re-evaluate and re-plot your path to be from the place that you are at now, at this moment, with the knowledge that you have now gained. Rather than considering that you are no longer on the path that you wanted to be on and are thus failing in some way.

jessie70

@ThailandTom: YES. That is what it's all about. I am just waking up to the virtue of patience with it. And not getting too attached to results... there is a paradox here. We are all searching or we wouldn't be discussing, learning... we would be sitting on a hilltop watching the view. It's balancing the search with the sit... I don't think it's possible to completely shut of the "search" part of myself, nor would I want to.... but I do have to reel in the WANT WANT WANT- even when it concerns my own improved behavior!

jessie70

@Lee82: Thank you - I see where you are coming from & it makes sense- a very nice refinement- I get it !