Water in the Cracks

Seph

Through my continuing practice of meditation - really, it's more my practice of mindfulness - I've come to see that

- my mind wants to worry -

(I know there are a number of implications to this statement. It sounds as if my mind has a will of its own! I also wonder if this could be some sort of variation of the monkey mind?)

No sooner than I get over one worry or it resolves itself, I find another. There's no reprieve.
I've got to resolve this.

~ ~ ~

"The highest form of goodness is like water" Tao Teh Ching, Verse 8

~ ~ ~

I think the answer is to Meet my worry mind like water
...but what is water like?

"Water is fluid, soft and yielding... Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of softness overcoming hardness" - Lao Tzu

It can find itself into the smallest nooks and crannies; it deeply penetrates something; contracting and expanding; irreparably breaking it open.

"Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence" - Ovid

Water benefits, it doesn't compete.
It pools in the lowest places, and like hope, can always be found in the seemingly lowliest, darkest, and loneliest of times.

So... what does it mean to meet my worrying mind like water?

~ ~ ~

Meditation is like water.
It slowly penetrates and seeps into the road. It ever so slowly, persistently, freezes and thaws; contracts and expands, until the road is littered with potholes, exposed and broken. So too does meditation do this to the hidden and inner workings of the mind. It may not be a quick process, but it's an unstoppable one. Patience. Persistence.

I only hope my patience and persistence continues.

genkaku

I love my worries ... I positively need them....

Who would I be without my worries?

how

There is a meditative difference between worry and identifying with a worry.

Our conditioning is typically supported by stimulation, worry being a common one.

Trying to stop this inertial energy head on is just too daunting a task for most but by simply allowing yourself a non interfering observer position of this worry, it returns to just being another transient phenomena. It stops overpowering all your other sense gate data and no longer retains it's ability to control the agenda.

lobster

Seph said:

I only hope my patience and persistence continues.

When you meditate if you can 'find the worry' between worry and 'not worry' and not worry about it . . . your patience and persistence will find its resolve.

DairyLama

how said:

There is a meditative difference between worry and identifying with a worry.

Yes, though I'd associate the difference with mindfulness, which provides a degree of separation.

Mani

I think that worrying is a direct result of thinking about something in the past ormosre likely, something in the future. During meditation, we are advised to set aside thoughts of the past and future and try to focus on the present moment and then rest awareness of that.

I think Shamata or calm abiding meditation would be quite helpful if you are not already practising this. As we practice in formal meditation, after some time it does tend to carry over into our daily lives.

We all have thoughts, after all it is a function of the mind. Not following these thoughts is what is difficult, especially at the outset. And as an extension to that, trying to treat these thoughts with a mind of equanimity- that is not assigning a judgement to those thoughts is also helpful. If you have an object of focus (ie. visual, breath) then each time you find yourself caught in a "worry" or any other thought or emotion, then just return to that object of focus.