{"id":447,"date":"2009-01-18T13:29:05","date_gmt":"2009-01-18T20:29:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolkarma.com\/dharma\/?p=447"},"modified":"2009-04-27T20:53:17","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T03:53:17","slug":"still-stuck-in-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/?p=447","title":{"rendered":"Still Stuck In Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Egoic Mind:<\/em> Total failure story. My heart is skipping more than it has been since last summer.\u00a0 I feel like a total failure.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 I know I can not control my heart and I understand that I can not control my reaction to my heart.\u00a0 So where and why the guilt.<\/p>\n<p>Rhetorical.\u00a0 I believe that I SHOULD be able to control my reaction.\u00a0 I believe that after all this time and all this work that I should have learned by now.<\/p>\n<p>So let&#8217;s see what all this &#8220;knowledge&#8221; has afforeded me:<\/p>\n<p>My heart skips when:<\/p>\n<ul type=\"disc\">\n<li>I eat.<\/li>\n<li>I am angry.<\/li>\n<li>I am afraid.<\/li>\n<li>I am having a hot flash.<\/li>\n<li>I walk and then sit down.<\/li>\n<li>And then sometimes for no god damn reason at all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now what the hell am I suppose to do with that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gnani:<\/strong> Doing comes.\u00a0 Even not doing, is an act of doing nothing.\u00a0 Can you not eat?\u00a0 Can you avoid being angry or scared?\u00a0 Can you control your hormones?\u00a0 Has it worked thus far to control your reaction?\u00a0 If you did not have to worry about controlling your emotional response or fear of dying from it &#8230; what <em>would<\/em> you do if you truly had a choice?<\/p>\n<p><em>Egoic Mind:<\/em> In my mind I would call the paramedics and they would hook me up to machines, see the problem, take me to the hospital and they would give me a pill or procedure or pace maker that would forever eliminate my worrying.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gnani:<\/strong> Have you ever called the paramedics?<\/p>\n<p><em>Egoic Mind:<\/em> Yes, many times.\u00a0 But the actual arrival of &#8220;help&#8221; never turned out the way that I imagined it would.\u00a0 And I do realize that what I want will not match what will happen should I call in those circumstances.\u00a0 It&#8217;s like the Elvis song .. Return to Sender.\u00a0 Over and over and over, he does the same thing with the same response.\u00a0 I keep hitting my head against this wall and wanting it not to hurt this time.\u00a0 I am falling into the same hole, but still walking down the rutted street.\u00a0 What choice do I have really?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gnani:<\/strong> You are walking on a street of potholes.\u00a0 It is likely you will continue to fall and perceive failure for as long as your body walks and your mind interprets.\u00a0 Is there another way?<\/p>\n<p><em>Egoic Mind:<\/em> I believe that there is.\u00a0 I have read stories of the great teachers who no longer suffer at the hands of their mental stories.\u00a0 Why is mine so much harder to break free from its grip?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gnani:<\/strong> And you?\u00a0 You are one of the great teachers?<\/p>\n<p><em>Egoic Mind:<\/em> I believe they were ordinary men (and women) with extraordinary experiences.\u00a0 Or perhaps luck.\u00a0 I believe my mind is the same mind that they had to work with.\u00a0 I believe Grace has already touched me and I have seen what is behind the veil.<\/p>\n<p>What I do not understand is the unabiding nature of my insights.\u00a0 Why is it that these experiences and deep knowing are (or seem) unavailable to me when I perceive this body\/mind in crisis?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gnani:<\/strong> Are you really in crisis in those times?<\/p>\n<p><em>Egoic Mind:<\/em> I believe myself to be in mortal danger.\u00a0 I can see in retrospect only that I was not in crisis.\u00a0 But more than that &#8230; even when I know in my heart that it will pass &#8230; I am still trapped by this desire to FIX IT so that it will never come again to hurt me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gnani:<\/strong> Of course.\u00a0 Of course.\u00a0 If you burned your hand every day, you would seek not only salve for the wound, but a means to avoid the injury if it was possible.\u00a0 And what if it was not possible and you were given insight into the Truth that you would not now or ever be able to avoid burning your hand.<\/p>\n<p>How would that change the course of your efforts?<\/p>\n<p><em>Egoic Mind:<\/em> If I truly <strong><em>believed<\/em><\/strong> the insight that no avoidance behavior was possible.\u00a0 Then I would shift my attention to how I could soothe myself after the burn occurred.\u00a0 I would gather ointments and cooling herbs to apply to the wound quickly so I could minimize the pain and damage as best I could.<\/p>\n<p>So then what can I do?\u00a0 Take herbs when the flair comes?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gnani:<\/strong> No telling what you WILL do.\u00a0 But when you accept the Truth of the situation, you will be able to focus your energy and efforts to alleviate the suffering and pain with compassion and patience &#8230; instead of trying to push against it in vein efforts to avoid the inevitable &#8230; or perhaps ineffable!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Egoic Mind: Total failure story. My heart is skipping more than it has been since<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gnani"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.karmabytes.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}