this was kind of the week where I somewhat felt like I used to felt before last year. confused and unease, clinging to other peoples acceptance. the dominating feeling was to run away, just run away. do something else. another dominating thought was, is that what it is. just keep running, keep yourself engage with goals and stuffs. because default is scary. the commitment was poor, didn’t really understood why I am doing it all. I was just passing along with days. a part of me desperately wants to create goals. so I can get out of it and a part of me feels why I am wasting time on not doing anything fruitful. weekends become hard, no clear goal, makes it even hard to wake up let alone fighting.

spirituality - it was a challenging week, I was scattered, hopelessly looking for refuge in pride and acceptance. not motivated. it was not a good feeling and that feeling owned me. I didn’t want...

feeling dense blurred and fractured vision, low confidence. comparing and judging myself with every one else. seeing the world through the eyes of problem. fear is gripping me all around. it feels like everything I would do will fail. nothing seems to make sense. everything else but me seems right. I just want to get out of all this and hide in a cave of solitude.

no samatha, no mindfulness, no meaning, no wisdom but down in the rabbit-hole of mental afflictions. is it suffering ?

from last few days, I can see I am being quite tight. looking the refuge in petty places like pride, affliction.

but why I am being hopeless here. I have ton of things to be grateful for. why I am wasting time in comparison when I can live this small time I have here on earth. why I am choosing to be pathetic when I can choose to be happy. is there some sort of pleasure in it. why I am consciously...

one thing I am noticing from the post of the last couple of months. I have jumped through practicing the guiding principle meditation, four immeasurable, 8 fold path. five hindrances. it’s like I do these things until they are fun. then I loose the incentive to do it. and I moved to do something more interesting.

It is also very much visible that understanding doesn’t really bring much. it fades away quite quickly. it is very much surface level thing. expecting any profound change by better understanding is a hopeless expectation.

knowing or realizing on the other hand seems more penetrating and last longing. all these concept as good as they sound. can not bring a lasting impact. only knowing first hand has any potential.

these concepts are basically solutions. and when there are to many solutions that means the problem itself is not clear. on the other hand these concepts can...

Interesting morning, I struggled waking up and when you are half asleep. the way mind work is quite remarkable. it’s not a great idea to listen to it until you are awake. from the morning itself I was experiencing dobut. and lost. not only motivation but I didn’t even have clear idea what to strive for.

I was in strange position, I didn’t want to feed the doubt by keep entertaining it. which was a different action. I don’t want to do engage in doubt because It doesn’t feel good.

it doesn’t feel like a progress so let me reiterate the goal here. the point is not to be enlighten here and now. the point is to internalize these principles, and keep practicing in daily life until it becomes the second nature or first response to the problem. the point is to give it some momentum, turn it into the habit.

there is a clear struggle happening, I want to listen songs while working but I don’t, I want to abuse senses but I restrain. I want to gossip but there is a pause. I like to get lost in inner chatter but I make an attempt to be mindful. at least most of the time I make a sincere effort. it goes without saying sometime I lost control and feels directionless, sometimes craving wins.

but I think I also have some default parameter on which I judge my spiritual progress like how much mindful I am toady ( effortlessly ), how much easy it is to keep standing as compare...

over this weekend I choses be alone and not doing particularly anything. and It was not so good feeling. morning I wrote something, after noon I slept and thought a little. evening walked and contemplate maybe. none of them inspire to achieve anything or relax. everytime I enter in the zone where I have to do nothing ( mentally ). I feel strong unease. something very much avoidable, who would like to feel miserable.

this beg a fundamental question, do I need to keep running. is it the state of suffering buddha is referring ? isn’t that suppose to be peaceful. how much stuff we do so we don’t have to feel this. the default of reality.

sometimes I feel these gaps, when I am not afflicted. mind is calm, peaceful and relaxed. and I don’t have any particular task to complete. but what exactly I do with this time.

the best thing could be to use this time to observe and understand the nature of reality. what really is happening around me. look around and see for yourself. develop some insight and wisdom. see how fear, hatred, greed, delusion working around you.

elevate the skillful understanding, read, understand and correct your illusion and expectation.

cultivate the positive qualities like 4 immeasurable. take advantage of this time.

meditate

at-least don’t do anything that intentionally invoke afflictions.

understanding, reading, watching is fundamentally a prop for practicing. once we learn to ride the bi-cycle. we don’t need props any more. putting all the time to make a better and better prop, but not practicing to ride the bicycle ( ofcourse out of fear of falling down ) is a trap of delusion. it is useless even if prop is made out of gold. than again riding a bike without prop is inviting unnecessary trouble.

there is a balance in between, there is this built in illusionary mechanism in us which try to connivence that if we have enough understanding we can avoid all the pain. but the growth lies in that pain itself. you avoid the pain, you killed the growth. unsettling is the nature of growth.

don’t obsess with props, use it when you really need it. otherwise just endure the pain and practice.

this week I could clearly see I am struggling in almost every aspect of the eight fold path, yet I can clearly sense these things can be overcome.

skillful understanding - as week progressed the right understanding starts to fade away. and with it the commitment and will to oppose the negative energy start to deplete, it needs constant nourishment at-least in the beginning, it is a clear harpy for this week.

skillful intention - intentions were coming from the place of pride, fear and ignorance. 4 immeasurable haha. more often than not greed and hatred made complete sense

skillful speech - speech happens with high frequency, I couldn’t be mindful enough to even observe it most of the time. sometime I reflected after it. it was atleast not intentionally malicious or lie. but every now and than the intention was pride. I were also in the position where others were speaking...

I started this week with determination of walking the eight fold path. or at-least make an effort to do so. beside work even though I followed morning ritual I were waking up late. I was looking at things like facebook more often. the effort I was putting to follow path was not enough. somehow understanding of it start to fade. I start to take refuge in the idea of doing it. rather than actually doing it. on the subtle level I could see, in my conversations I was trying to impress others. on the other side of it I looked on my behavior more closely and collected more data. the place where I lack the most is choosing right thing over pleasurable feeling.

spirituality - meditation as usual, I did one thing which seems different than what I usually do. I stopped running. I could have very well spend this week to learn technical stuff, or other things which could have engage the mind. but...