Stinkin' Thinkin'

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts. ~Buddha

If you ever went to an AA meeting you would hear the phrase Stinkin’ Thinkin’, but you don’t have to be an alcoholic to be a stinkin’ thinkin’ practitioner. It is common to trust our own thoughts, but our own thoughts lie to us all the time.

Allow me to summarize again: What we think is based upon what we believe. What we believe is not based on facts, but upon our programming. If I think, “I’m a stupid-head loser” it is because I believe that to be true. It is not based upon facts. Say I drop something. Does that prove I am a clumsy klutz? No. But if I believe I am a clumsy klutz, then dropping something stops being something that happened, and becomes irrefutable evidence that I am an awkward, inept, ham-fisted, lumbering, and clumsy honyocker with the grace of an elephant on roller blades.

Of course, I believe I am a kinetic dork because I've been programed to believe it. I was told that this was a fact about me by my parents, siblings, and kids at school. Every time I was the last one picked to play some game in gym, I learn again that I an clumsy, and inept. This is my programing, but it is not a fact.

The fact is that everyone, from time to time drops something.
The fact is that even if I drop stuff more than most people, does not mean I am less worthy to taken in air and sustenance. What if I am a clumsy klutz? Is that bad? When I say it I intend for it to be bad, but why is it bad? Because in my mind grace and dexterity must be perfect to be OK, and if I am not perfect I am not OK.

Buddha is right: my unguarded thinking is my worst enemy. I have failed to know myself, because I am prejudice and bigoted. I judge myself without gathering the facts. I am a bigot because I have been predisposed to hate myself.

Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future. The past no longer is. The future has not yet come. Looking deeply at life as it is. In the very here and now, the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom. We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late. Death comes unexpectedly.How can we bargain with it? The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness night and day, 'one who knows the better way to live alone.' ~Bhaddekaratta Sutta

We are all like cut diamonds – with many facets. I am one person – a single individual being – and yet I am many beings. I am a father, a son, a teacher, a learner, a reader, a writer, active, passive, lazy, tireless, disciplined and out of control, sure and hesitant, graceful, maladroit, obese, but not fat enough for a job in the side-show, moral, immoral, amoral, brave, afraid, social, and a loner.

Make an island of yourself, make yourself your refuge; there is no other refuge.Make truth your island, make truth your refuge; there is no other refuge. ~Digha Nikaya,