Hi Samy Great thoughts

I  wonder why is identifying with emotions bad? In a non dualistic way of good and bad concepts disappear.  🙂 as for example anger can be experienced as both, even at the same moment in time.  The intention is to experience the emotion without attaching a sense of self to it. To allow the experience flow which is I guess a kind of letting go (working for that which no work is required – the moment has passed –  if so what is it that we are holding on to (attaching to) ) 

But did it change anything? Whether Lion killed motivated by nature or anger, the rabbit would still be dead. If you witness the killing and could verify that the Lion killed out of anger. Has your image and feelings toward the Lion changed, perhaps you might view the Lion with less compassion and as a other? Attaching to the Lion labels – like Lion is what it did vice the Lion did a ugly thing.

I Just worrying about what true detachment. A helpful concern to be mindful of. For myself I often find myself falling into the trap of indifference. When I notice that, I know that my practice of detachment has become something else.  Thus the Practice of mindfulness. (note that the practice of mindfulness also involves avoiding attaching our sense of self to labels, thoughts, emotions 🙂 Mindfulness is about noticing. We are better able to notice when we practice detachment. Which comes first Mindfulness OR Detachment? The question is dualistic thinking 🙂 There is no OR… or First)

I also feel that the Practice of healthy detachment creates healthy boundaries, that lead to Compassion where the idea of the ‘Other’ dissolves.  I suspect a unhealthy detachment sets one back into dualistic thinking, Tribalism, Us verses Them…

Where do you learn your lessons from?  Books have been my primary learning tool and the seem to show up when I’m ready for them. (its one thing to read/know of something quite another to integrate it, make it your own). Something Jung  noted had a big impact – He said that it takes a healthy ego (healthy sense of self) to be able  ‘let go’ of ego (letting go of ego here is not  denying the ego only avoiding identifying (attaching) the sense of self to ego)  Thus again we work for that which no work is required)

I also learned a a lot from taking ballroom dancing classes and approaching it as a practice.  Practicing being still while physically engaged in dancing and connected to a partner. Engaged while detached from outcome…  (as above so below, as below so above – the riddle of alchemy)

A Zen practice of being mindful/present while we perform our tasks, one begins to notice when the inner state is influencing the outer experience Or when the outer experience is influencing the inner. (Note in a pervious post where I mentioned that a Answer Of No to the question of ‘Life as it Is’ didn’t end the cycle of suffering. One of the reasons is that a NO usually involves trying to change life from the Outside as a act of will (often about wanting to control Life) were we have very little influence. While a YES comes from a place that starts from within, where we have influence, (if not always control) that flows with Life.)

Their is a idea of ‘Concentration without Effort’  A kind of act of will/intention that is the is a letting go of will…  words fail in trying to explain… kind of the difference between reading a book and being open to the book reading you…

Anyway You can trust that when you are ready (open without forcing yourself to be open) the ‘teacher’  will show themselves to you.

There is a saying Knock and the Door will open, Seek and you shell find. I would add that we can seek and we can knock and then we must wait at the door to open in its time. We ought not to try to open the door ourselves or force it open.

Thus I ponder the words of TS Eliot as I imagine knocking at the door and waiting: – “I ask to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”