I notice in my Course meditation times that a deep joy can come upon me. But what is notable to me is how incredibly short the time is before I start back into what some call 'the monkey mind.'
So what shall I attend to here? How quickly I lose it? Or the beautiful joy that I have it at all?
Neither. Attend to the inattendance. We slip so quickly back into the drama by not being attentive. As the Course teaches, "try only to be vigilant". Vigilant for what? Mind wandering. Catch that we've been taken over by the demands of name & body identification. That's it. The goal is NOT to stop the mind wandering. The goal is NOT to stop name & body identification. The goal is to CATCH it. The way INTO deep joy is by catching that we're seemingly NOT in it. By catching it, you'll come to recognize there is a presence or awareness that caught the disquietness. Two components: (1) the name & body with its disquietness, and (2) the presence/awareness that caught it. The more you catch it, the more you are shifting your attention out of name & body identification and into this eternal presence of perfect peace that "merely looks, and waits, and judges not".
I notice in my Course meditation times that a deep joy can come upon me. But what is notable to me is how incredibly short the time is before I start back into what some call 'the monkey mind.'
So what shall I attend to here? How quickly I lose it? Or the beautiful joy that I have it at all?
Neither. Attend to the inattendance. We slip so quickly back into the drama by not being attentive. As the Course teaches, "try only to be vigilant". Vigilant for what? Mind wandering. Catch that we've been taken over by the demands of name & body identification. That's it. The goal is NOT to stop the mind wandering. The goal is NOT to stop name & body identification. The goal is to CATCH it. The way INTO deep joy is by catching that we're seemingly NOT in it. By catching it, you'll come to recognize there is a presence or awareness that caught the disquietness. Two components: (1) the name & body with its disquietness, and (2) the presence/awareness that caught it. The more you catch it, the more you are shifting your attention out of name & body identification and into this eternal presence of perfect peace that "merely looks, and waits, and judges not".