What an odd tendency I have! When I'm driving I invariably catch myself, every 10 minutes or so, looking what another driver is doing, and thinking in my mind "that's not right, don't do that, do it like I do"! Whether it's turning without indicating, driving inches behind the car in front of them, hogging the fast lane, or just plain sitting in the wrong car, at regular intervals there seems to be something which I feel should be changed.
How odd. It's *me* that knows how things 'should' be. It's *me* that has the 'answers'. Other people's way is wrong, and mind is right. When they do what I think is wrong, my mind protests, and I suffer. I look, judge, attach, react ... and suffer .... what a strange succession of mental states.
Of late, this habit has become rather transparent, and one which I can see coming up almost before it arises. No longer caught in the grip of an unconscious process, I watch the arisings with amusement and some distance. But nevertheless, they continue to arise. Maybe not as often, but now and then.
So the good news - over time, with practice, these things happen less, are less hypnotic, and cause less suffering.
The bad news? Probably most of us in the world are going around doing this to each other in our heads ("this shouldn't be like that ... do it like this!") ... or worse, making each other do things our way (pretty easy to think of examples here).
Letting go of this control freak tendancy, to want things a certain way, *our* way, and allowing the world to 'be' just a little more. Cultivating peace in our hearts with the way things are .... and thereby fully experiencing what actually is, rather than getting a hint of it, and immediately jumping to 'fantasy mode', as our mind races to play out thoughts and judgements and scenarios.
Letting go of 'should', letting go of 'my way is best', and allowing a little of what is to just be how it is.
Sometimes in that, we see more than we thought was there.
Sometimes in that, we see more of ourselves than we thought was there.
Letting go.
2 comments:
Nice to have you back! I go through the same thing each morning when I drive to work. :)
Hi, thank you both for your kind comments - it's funny, I seem to unconsciously think the world would be a far better place if *I* was in charge of it, not *you* or anyone else!
hehehehehe
and yet, whenever someone gets major power in their lives, they seem to invariably create quite a mess .....
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