Episode #59

[rva_jeremy]

I echo Lana's gratitude for that detailed decscription of your mindfulness practice, Austin. What I identify as key is the sheer willingness -- the act of will you engage in constantly, it seems -- to examine the thoughts on a continual basis, to have no escape from what it is the mind is processing. It is a very compassionate and patient way to be, and it dovetails with something I've been thinking about lately about our craving of resolution -- how much of what I push out of my mind or try to avoid facing directly has to do with the contingent nature of experience. Nothing is known, nothing is settled, everything is flux, and so nothing can be "resolved", put in a box, and ignored. In short, as our Venusian friends say, nothing shall be overcome, and it occurs to me that it is in the mind that we first try to "overcome" or being to conceive of overcoming as even a possible approach. Your practice, in other words, seems perfectly tuned to letting things fall away in their own time, with an appreciation for the mind's role in signification and taking responsibility for what gets projected onto the screen of consciousness.

Thanks again for your generous account.