today i learned all about the reaching and grasping tentacles of my ego-image.
it was a pretty mediocre day as far as days go. less present than yesterday. pretty distracted but still positive. i did not meditate in the morning as i am used to, however. i woke up very late and the heaviness of oversleeping remained in my head for a while during the earlier part of the day. lethargy in the end, due to this heaviness and oversleep, was the excuse i used to allow myself to skip the sitting in the morning.
that being said, however, there was another reason. last night, just before going to bed, i meditated for 30 minutes. this was one of the rare occasions that my meditation enters a sufficiently deep immersion in mindfulness that releases me from any hindrances that might cause me to get up and end the sitting. i might even go so far as to claim that it was probably the deepest and most stable meditation i have ever experienced. another factor that helped make it exceptionally stable was my enhanced perception and awareness of my posture and frequent correction of it in order to maintain a fully upright spine and balanced level head throughout the entire sitting. my vision started going haywire after about 10 minutes as neon lights of all the various colors of the rainbow began to flash across my visual field. they would interact with each other and then fade away to be replaced by other colors interacting in different ways. what was especially evident was the brightness of the lights in general. it was nearly blinding in its intensity. after about ten minutes of this, things reversed their course. everything began to dim down. and i felt a sort of gray fog settle in on my visual field that sort of distanced me from the wall my gaze was fixed upon. everything began to blend into one another and i felt as though i was withdrawing from the visual world as a whole. eventually, this stopped and i checked the time to be perplexed to find that i had been sitting for 30 minutes without realizing the passage of the time.
afterwards, i lay down on the floor and began to shed tears. this was the reflection of deep deep sadness running through my veins and in my body as i realized the utter simplicity and beauty and TRUTH of it all. i cried for the world. i cried for all those poor imprisoned souls who suffer helplessly and NEEDLESSLY. it is so simple. and it is so sad. i connected to all the humans on the planet and i felt for them.
anyway, so today is tentacleday because i made a realization today about the tentacles of self-reference that my ego unleashes out into the world. it seeks to put its grasping reaching hands upon everything it sees that it desires. this becomes especially evident in relationships. i was having a conversation with my brother as we ate lunch and suddenly i felt the scarlet taste of anger begin to blind my presence. it was a conditioned anger. it was an ancient anger, an archaeological site dug out by the tentacles of my ego as they seeked to put their filthy hands on another human being and to use him as a way to bolster the delusion and the false image. they are ever-reaching, ever-grasping, ever-seeking and looking outwards in a vain effort to validate an existence so hopelessly meaningless as to have no hope of being validated through such futile attempts. the only way is to follow the Eightfold Path and the Middle Way. the only way is through the NOW and being immersed in it.
“I, Buddha, who wept with all my brothers’ tears
Whose heart was broken by a whole world’s woe
Laugh and am glad, for there is Liberty.”
Ho! ye who suffer! know.
“Ye suffer from yourselves. None else compels,
None other holds you that ye live and die,
And whirl upon the wheel, and hug and kiss
Its spokes of agony,
Its tire of tears, its nave of nothingness.”
– Buddha