Hmm...
I feel an urge to write to you and I'm trying to figure out why.
I think if I didn't write to you after having read what you have written, that would make me feel bad. Does that make this egoistic? And why would not writing to you make me feel bad?
Before you go on reading, you must read the warning at the bottom.Are you mixing the relative and the absolute?
Check out the videos+lectures of Alan Watts on YouTube. That is a sincere and deep recommendation from me. This guy is special to me and that has
never happened for me before - I've never actually been sad by the prospect of not being able to meet someone because they are dead, other than with this guy. Give it an honest go. I've done my background checks on him - he's the real deal. Get a beer (or a cup of tea - or both!); enjoy.
In my experience, you get through the shit by getting through the shit. There's no way around it, that's not how it works. The quantity of suffering does not matter, be it petty irritation or the-stuff-from-which-suicide-is-made-of. You get through it in exactly the same way.
You think too much. You're neurotic. Stop it. Unless you can't, then I don't know anything about it, and can only echo what I've seen others write in such situations: seek professional help.
It is useless to plan the future for one who does not have the capacity to appreciate the present.
Don't just read that, understand it (
seriously, read it again).
The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it is called the present.
Stop what you're doing.
Isn't this enough?
Not in a THE-MEANING-OF-LIFE kind of way. But an oasis-of-calm-in-the-midst-of-chaos kind of way.
At some point I realized that I was human. I gave myself some slack. To me, that was the platform from which I could reach higher.
Your little
wind-up tin soldier called your 'mind' has been wound up so much, isn't it about time you let it run itself out? Stop winding it up. Breath.
I wrote this just today:
(explaining a refined, calm and happy state of consciousness) You are free to consciously be aware / attentive (use conscious attention) to anything you like, but you don't have to; Your obsessive habits of scanning, scanning, scanning - looking for faults and errors and threats and generally being hyper vigilant - is relaxed and ultimately ceases.
My style has always been "buckle up, get it done", and it has worked for me. Maybe I'm blind to it, but it has never ever done anything but good, and I know that I impart this on others. It seems to be working for them as well. "Buckling up" is not some form of masochism; realize that sometimes the "get it done" part is fiercely crying it out or giving in to all kinds of soft and mushy emotions and naive wishes and dreams or inflicting oneself with all kinds of unnecessary sufferings, just to satisfy that impulse and learn that unnecessary suffering is
unnecessary (OK, that last one
does sound very masochistic, but I hope you get it).
Going by my own little, limited and subjective understanding of Daniels life, he was in pretty much the same place as you are right now. I'm sure the mighty, nay the Allmighty Arahant Dr., MD, prof. Sri Daniel M. Ingram, Sir (not to mention Founder, Owner and Supreme Overlord of the DhO) has a few tricks up his sleeve when it comes to this kind of mental manure that you're describing.
I better stop myself here. Phew, quite the stew (of mental masturbation).
I'd also like to recommend Dzogchen. And also check out AEN's blog awakeningtoreality.com - it's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But I think that that isn't going to help right now, so I didn't make the link a clickable one.WARNING: Don't take any of this seriously... except all the honorary titles for Daniel.
EDIT:
I really like this reply to
one of your previous threads (maybe worth re-reading to consider your own progress?):
tarin greco:
Michael For me to know and you to find out Kich:
(...) I find my mind seems to throw every conceivable distraction at me in an attempt to shy away from attaining true concentration, (...)
it's not your mind that is throwing distractions at you, your mind is you, and so it is you who are throwing yourself around.
realise this and gain intimacy with/mastery over what you feel to be yourself.
Grab something flexible, something which you can bend into a U-shape.
Seriously, do it, it'll make the impact of the following much greater.
I'll wait...
Now bend it such that one end kind of looks over or
at the rest of the thing like a 'head', like the 'Peh' in the phoenician alphabet (the third last letter on
this image). The 'observing mind' is the end of that little bend, which seems to be 'looking at' the rest of the mind. Notice the bend: it is constructed such that the bend itself it out of sight of the 'observing mind', and so the 'observing mind' never realizes that it is connected to and in fact none other than the rest of the mind. This last thing is 'ignore
ance'.
If you now take your flexible thing and straighten it out, that is one kind of definition of enlightenment.
The 'observing mind' is nothing but thoughts
about thoughts. Thoughts
about thoughts are exactly
not different from 'ordinary' thoughts.