This Isn’t Fair
(a Q&A with the teacher)
Student:
Yesterday you reminded me - emphatically - about the futility, even destructiveness, of the mind, identified as who I am, trying to solve the mind/body's "problems." In my case, depression.
You suggested remembering upon awakening and before sleep that these efforts always have been and will be futile. Or something to that effect. Will you please repeat that here?
I just chuckled remembering from "Star Trek" the warning of The Borg that "Resistance is futile."
Mark Pifer:
I would like you to inquire into the effectiveness of all the plans, plots, and schemes your mind has conjured to "solve" the health issues. I would VERY much like all of my students to hold the mind's schemes accountable. If it has some crafty idea to solve something, well, how did it work? ESPECIALLY things like its ideas that our current states "should not be."
That last one is VERY important.
Of what use is that thought?
AND "this should not be" is drastically different from "I am uncomfortable, tired, or suffering."
The first is useless; the second is a simple observation of what is.
"I am uncomfortable, tired, and suffering... and that's ok..." try that!!
Student:
It has felt untrue for me to add the "and that's OK." I most often get a "No it's not" right after. J*** had suggested "OK, this is what's happening." That seems to do something, like bring me more into the physical experience, or give some distance from the repetitive thinking. I'd like your take, please.
Mark Pifer:
I think that all of what you are doing is in the realm of striving, pulling, pushing, and fixing. It doesn't matter how it is phrased in the least.
What matters is the surrender.
This biological and psychological reality that we call "the body/mind" is actually none of our business.
We won't control the outcome, nor, for example, will we decide if we're "health nuts" or "lazy bones" or “strong” or “weak” or “hungry” or “sated” or…
And the mind hates that.
We are conditioned. We can observe the conditioning and through that observation slowly watch as IT changes. We cannot change it today. We cannot change it now which is where we ARE.
The body/mind is what it is right now. And that's ok, because it can not be not ok.
It's impossible for it to be not ok.
Except... in the abstract. Except in the mind.
The mind will NEVER change reality. Reality already IS.
And when we have our awareness in our mind's version of reality like "this isn't fair" we suffer needlessly.
That phrase "this isn't fair" implies an alternative reality where relative conditions are handed out equally.
That is NOT the relative reality these forms occupy.
Therefore since a lack of "fair distribution" IS fairly distributed then it is indeed fair.
Every form gets to be on top and on bottom. It gets to be relatively high and relatively low. It gets to begin and end.
And since that is what is. It is fair. And it is ok.
Student:
You must have Borg genes.
Mark Pifer:
lol no I just resisted enough to see the futility myself :)
There is a lovely and light essence that feels much like the entire universe holding you in a loving embrace waiting for your surrender. Waiting to catch you. But you can't take your mind with you.
Student:
Yes, I feel it from time to time. Like now.
"I follow four dictates: face it, accept it, deal with it, then let it go." — Sheng-yen