The 4:00 am fog and the bull horn of random thinking

I have never really been a morning person but for the last two weeks I have been able to get up at 4:00 am and meditate. This has been an on and off again attempt at rising early but like I said for the last two weeks I've been steady. This is the only time of the day that I can really be alone but it is soooooooo hard! One thing that makes it a little easier is the fact I get absolute silence. The first frost has sent all the birds and insects either to their grave or to other lands. While I love them all and wish them all well they can be quite noisy friends.

But I continue to struggle with trying to stay awake while sitting cross legged with my eyes closed. So I often find myself walking the thin line between the dream world and being awake. Many times, more often than I'd like to admit, I easily cross over into dream land. I know this is one of the hindrances to mental cultivation and I am noticing where and how I am making progress. Mindfulness is the most powerful tool to overcome this hindrance. Being aware prevents the onset of drowsiness. When awareness slips it is awareness that gently brings me back. Awareness/Mindfulness is a difficult state of mind to attain but so very powerful.

Another challenge is how loud the thoughts in my head can be. When there is no external noise the internal noise can be defining. It has a heavy and burdensome characteristic. The best way I have found to deal with this is not to try and tune it out (it just gets louder) and ignoring it is like whacking a hornet's nest with a stick. instead I walk toward the noise, curious but disinterested and most important Mindful. I want to know where this is coming from and the true nature of it(insight) but the trick is not to grab on to the thoughts(craving). I liken these out of control random thoughts to getting on and off a million escalators which represent thoughts. All you have to do is step on the escalator, this action of steeping on represents craving, and the escalator or thoughts will do the rest. They just take you for a ride and once you get to the top you get on the next one. On the way up or down you pass through all kinds of crazy scenes and re create reality through fantasy. You imagine all kinds of things and then act them out when you get back to the real world.

So what I try to do is to observe the escalator and the experience without getting attached which is far, far easier said than done! I read the directory and find out where this escalator is going. "Top floor: Lust. passion, hate, desire, anger." Now here's the thing, I have been training my mind for years to ignore reality and see life the way I think it should be instead of how it really is. Therefore figuratively speaking I really never get off the escalator!But with mindfulness I see what is happening a little better. The mindfulness leads to insight. It's almost how Neo was able to see bullets being fired at him in the movie the Matrix. I see them coming and I am better equipped not to attach myself to them. I see the true nature of those thoughts. They are not real the are impermanent and manufactured by my ego. They come and go but, when one comes along that is particularly appealing that is when Mindfulness gets thrown out and where ego, alternate reality, and delusion fill the void. Only mindfulness can bring me back.

This post is getting long so I'll pick this up again next week. Have a good weekend.