On pondering some inadvertant paper mache...

The human psyche is almost infinitely complex, made up of layers upon layers of thoughts, experiences, emotions, fears, loves, and goals. Those who seek to find the true essence of being or to move past a fear or anger response find that there are many intermediate steps along the way. When we first look inward, we look at ourselves as a whole, as a cumulative, when in fact we are only seeing the surface. Like an onion, if we move past the surface, we will find another layer. Moving past that, we find yet another layer. Layers of differing thickness and strength and size, but tied one to the next by the thin skin of experience that holds them in place. These layers are barriers and everyone has them. You may work past one fear only to be confronted with a deeper, underlying fear. Or you may fully assimilate a revelation only to find other aspects of that revelation that you had not discovered. How many layers you will confront before finding a resolution is unknown. This is the journey, this is life.

But the journey to the center of the onion - what they called sunyata in Sanskrit or mu in Chinese - can be an enlightening experience in and of itself. As you break through each barrier, you gain a more profound understanding of your own mind and come to learn the unique facets that make up who you are. You will become intimately acquainted with your needs and wants, reactions, aversions, pleasures, and pains. You will discover qualities within yourself that have been buried by the years or by old hurts, by old habits. This knowledge is cumulative. As you break through one barrier and confront the next, oftentimes more powerful, barrier, you will be equipped with the knowledge of self that you have gained during your searching.

The process can continue indefinitely, for with self-discovery comes growth and thus further discovery. The more you learn, the more you will inevitably find, as you travel deeper and deeper within your soul.

Cycles

Cycles occur when form dominates energy. The nature of life depends on completing cycles of energy expression created by form.

There are those of us who prefer to stay at one point in a life cycle and not move on with the flow of things. When we try to prevent a cycle completing itself then we create the movement anyway, but in a more extreme form. The conscious person accepts the cycles of life and uses them to complete the tasks appropriate to the time. Expect victory and defeat, ups and downs, in equal measure.

A task: Make conscious a cycle in your life, discovering its effects. And acknowledge pattern every day of your life by finding your rightful place in it.

Generating and Causing

What is "need" and not "compulsion" depends on the consciousness we bring to it. How much better to give up compulsions and just meet your needs directly. And choice, not thinking, makes things happen.

Live as if each moment depends on your choice. Because it does.

When I am serene.

The world is a palette of varied beauty with subtle and not-so-subtle differences in brilliance and hue. But, like all we perceive subjectively, many things can fail to meet our "expectations". People don't behave as we'd wish them to, situations turn out differently than we'd imagined, and the end result is often that people choose unhappiness as a response. The remedy is acceptance - an open-minded, understanding perception that brings the serenity of knowing every individual, situation, or difficulty is unique and valuable in some way. It is a mode of respect for differences, of seeing beyond faults or disappointments and reaching contentment.

Though acceptance necessitates recognizing and acknowledging situations or attitudes that exist in the present, it does not imply that you need also give your approval. To approve or to disapprove is to judge, but in accepting, you simply understand that all situations and all people are in a constant state of flux. Likewise, each of us is also in the process of changing and by choosing to accept ourselves (in the past, present, and future); we can truly begin to understand who we really are. Acceptance is freedom from the need to retain preconceived notions, control of others, favored outcomes, or the anxiety that many people choose when the unexpected occurs. It is more than "tolerance", though resisting the urge to react to the choices of others is a large part of the process. Rather, I believe it is a patience and gentleness that extends outward, beginning in one's own soul and extending to other people and the world at large.

Sometimes the process works in reverse because accepting others can be easier than accepting oneself, though the latter is the inevitable result of true acceptance. In fostering acceptance, the need to judge is quelled because the belief that others ought to live up to your expectations (or 'should thinking') is eliminated: everything is evolving and deserves to do so without interference. And in letting growth happen and understanding that each person, place, thing, or situation is as it is meant to be, a blissful quiet of the mind can be realized.