Extract from Zen and the Art of Loat and Found

19

 

Zen and the Art of Lost and Found

Psychic shadow boxing:  fighting a fight you can neither win, nor protect yourself from. We now know that people are driven by these unconscious memories, repressed feelings and unfulfilled needs, and this state of affairs tends to determine nearly everything they do or are willing to attempt to do or fail to do.

Psychic Shadow Boxing: ...

Does not have to be my predetermined or pre ordained occupation in life ... that was another discovery I had made. Just how much time I had invested in doing the dance of self-preservation in the face of overwhelming evidence that the time for doing this dance had long since passed ...  this amazed me!

My emotions, I had discovered ... yet another discovery ... were the by-products or afterthoughts of some cognitive process(s) I had either grabbed hold of or had passed through my life and in some cases, had grabbed hold of me on the way by ... now were producing things I had little or no understanding of. What I came to understand was that the vast majority of this “grabbing onto stuff” had gone on for many years ... that is where and when I learned it ... many years ago ... and now it was just a simple habit that I had ... something like smoking ... not very good for my health but dependable as hell ... if I wanted things to be different I just had to change a habit.

Question asked:

Just how much time had I dedicated to wasting my energy by hanging onto a habit that defined me by my limitations?

As I began to give myself permission to begin to explore this stuff ... it started to become clear ... and at the same time ... just a little scary ... I really had no idea about this thing called life or where I really was in it

 

Simple yet profound

Neil Douglas-Tubb (RCC)