It is about choice. Not the kind of choice of which to choose when I am being given something. Neither is it about which road to choose when I come to a crossroad. Nor is it about a dilemma situation which I am forced to choose. In truth, there are no choices in all this scenes, as my outcome of what I choose is derived from my past perceptions, and hence dictated by an idea. Many an occasion , the so called choices I made are fear based rather than love, or wisdom.
I sat on the couch this morning, simply being in the now, observing the landscape of the mind as the heavy traffic of thoughts and emotions wheezes past my attention. Whether or not I am there for the mind, whatever there is in it still passes, oblivious to my presence. And the scene is no different from resting at the window sill, watching the world pass by.
On a certain occasion an object will attract my attention and at that precise moment I will miss whatever that is passing by. I can’t change or reversed the scene again. It is gone. I would not know what is there or whether it was there. What I know is that I am totally immersed in my own imagination of what I was attracted to, oblivious to the reality of what has gone by. In other words I was unconsciously deluded by my inner, so called, delusional reality.
To avoid this from happening, I just need to stay cool, relax and learn not to be pulled into what comes my way. But do I have a choice in this? None at all. I can’t dictate what is already coming into my space. Neither can I dictate what will attract me. Both are beyond my choices. I don’t have a say in it. Only because I am so unconscious to how the mind works. Everything are all natural occurrences coming my way. In other words, they are all effects taking place in this so-called time and space. And they are merely defined as experiences in my own space – nothing more than that. I can’t hold on to it nor resist it – though many a times I thought I was able to do so, obviously out of delusion and ignorance.
So what is choice then? My choice is to choose again. To choose what has already just passed – my reaction to what is. To respond to what has already occurred in my space. If what has occurred is fear, I choose to surrender. If what has occurred is love, I choose to surrender too. My choice becomes obvious and clear as I don’t choose out of wanting or not wanting but simply in the state of being, of surrendering. And when this choice is being chosen again and again, being practiced over and over again, it takes on a new process in the operating system of the mind. It no longer clings or grasps but simply surrender. There is no longer the “me” to do or to choose but simply undoing. No one undoing.
And the meaning of surrender is not what we normally understood as giving up, but rather allowing or letting be from the level of trust. And even that, the trust is not blind but rather the work of wisdom and all its attributes. It is a trust that comes from the knowing that I do not know and there is a greater intelligence far more that this tiny speck of “my” knowing. As I choose this way, I choose to heal the mind from dysfunctional grasping.
I can’t choose right-mindedly unless and until I choose to be in the now and here, right precisely at this moment. And the only way not to forget to be in the present is my choice.
To come into greater Freedom, we take the choice to choose pathways that bring us little little freedom.
On a certain occasion an object will attract my attention and at that precise moment I will miss whatever that is passing by.
Watching out at the window sill, numbers do not matter. If I attracted to one, I will miss whatever that is passing by. Even If I manage to be attracted to many, I still dont know that many worth that are passing by. It could be none, it could be infinite.
So surrender it is. Que sera sera ? Whatever it will be, will be ? The “choice” that brings freedom, how so little, serve as a guide ? Again, the battle would be in defining what is “freedom” at all angles. Which, it could also mean freedom from the man-made laws and orders, just to name one?
Again…
I can’t choose right-mindedly unless and until I choose to be in the now and here, right precisely at this moment.
Even if “the now and here” is already “the past and there” the moment I realised the so-called “now and here”. It is the infinitesimal “past and there”, the hundreth, the thousanth fraction of a second of realisation.
When will I be able to precisely claim “it is now and here”, since I need to realise it before I am able to say it? The “now and here” need to pass me, thus become “the past and there” before I could even point a finger. Isn’t it so?
Yes. The journey is paradoxical as what you observed in the present is actually something of the immediate past. You can only observe something that must have arisen, not what is arising, though it may be a hundredth of a second. But the point is not about now. The point of the practise is about coming to a choice in responding to the automated reaction of the mind at each now instead of reacting to the reaction of the mind. And to do that I have to enter into the now. When I choose to respond I choose surrendering as its factor. So “now and here” is not the key point though it is an important beginning for the journey of right-mindedness. The end result is surrendering.