.“there is really no other option at this point but to fake a potion”

there isn’t much more at this juncture beyond conjecture so there it is, I leave it to you to obfuscate the symptoms of your life that could, should you choose, lead to a freedom to suffer more wisely and joyfully.

So then if we are sitting here curious about the nature of things, or dis-ease in the Confucian sense of confusion of sense with virtue and displacement, like the arrangements we have with Christmas or feaster (the one with the bunny that lays chocolate eggs while we eat ham)… So if we are still curious we can proceed with an anamnesis of everything. In fact, as in fiction, it is these things that we are after to put together while we figure out what’s for dinner on any given day.

For example: a girl once asked about her bedtime proceeds to simply grumble about her business whilst siblings do her chores and mommy gets grumbly too. This is a common scenario, possibly even in my own home…

Here we have a few options:

1. To leave it all alone and see how it plays out.
2. 2. To intervene with an intended fulcrum, I.e. “Fix” the situation.
3. 3. Notice from whichever observer seat (ok, it’s me, I’m the grumbly mommy) how my body is responding to all of this
4. 4. Hope someone else swoops in and saves me from wanting to wring a child’s neck… I mean from singing a bedtime song…

So you see there are probably 10 more ways this could go. Some of which will end in war, some of which will end in “submission” (either child or my own) and only a single one resulting in curiosity.

If we had to now place bets about which approach will get to “the root” of the issue could we do so with relative certainty? Have you ever tried some of these approaches in your own life?

Now consider that this procedure is applicable for EVERY situation (think about it for a minute… Even if we were interested in immediate reconciliation of a “problem” and not the “root issue,” say, for example I’m a sniper trying to take out one guy ready to gun down an area… Still best if I notice my own body and stay really present with that moment- if I let fear, fatigue, theory or anything beyond sensational observations: wind speed, distance, aim, breath… I am in trouble. Why should I let the rest of my life be less precise than this?

Now the difficulty arises: you say to me “then teach me how to meditate” because that is our new answer, our new Advil, our new way of medicating our minds to become obedient. We think we can “fix it” but it is not broken. Our bodies and minds are not escaping out of stupidity. That is a very un-curious assumption to make! Bodies are complex (forget mind- for now let’s agree to disagree that they are very well connected- in fact that you could not have a mind without a body and vice-versa, so we will assume, at least until the next chapter, they are one.) and with a lot of checks and balances- when your left foot hurts you don’t have to think very hard about putting more weight on the right… And then maybe after a bit something else starts to shift… So what if we notice that our attention is like that… What if we say “look, I was really leaning away from that idea, I am really preferring to look anywhere but right here right now… isn’t that fascinating?” Rather than getting into a fight with how “I wasn’t present” (notice how you’re already in the past thinking about not being present then? Guess what we just missed?! Another moment in which to be awake..

Ok, so what? Who cares? I don’t want to be wake it really hurts… There’s a lot of pain in our society and I’d rather ignore as much of it as possible…

“Isn’t that fascinating?” I wonder where I got the idea that pain precludes joy? I wonder where I got the idea I could avoid pain? I wonder if looking away will make it easier?

I don’t know what the point is. If I did I’d have written the end. But here it is, not over yet- there are more things I’m curious about, like whether it makes any sense to trust you’ll read and find usefulness in something I’ve thought even in a tumble of moments- and indeed if my tumble of moments are unique then I am surprised (as are most of my patients day to day who have all similar experiences of wise bodies reminding them to stay present, peaceful, awake)

This is the first day of December and the last day of exploratory excuses for not sharing the questions you’ve gratefully superimposed on our mutual lives that don’t require even the medication of meditation.