The Edge

I think I have been mad for quite some time. Most of the past year, to be sure. For quite some time before that. Not the madness of insanity, though I would argue that "insane" is a fitting descriptor. No, this was a dull madness, an everyday madness, brought on by only thinking rather than seeing, listening. I think, perhaps, it was the pain of the past year that made me realize it. Once I learned to sink beneath the pain, sink the thoughts and be here, in this moment, and some moments are harder than others...once I learned to sink at will rather than at the whim of chance, I could tell the difference. With the mind not sunk, the thoughts race and race and race, and they think nothing of consequence, though each thought seems like the most consequential idea in all of the world. Sunk down, fewer thoughts come, and those that come have meaning. Substance. It is possibl to be aware of more than the square foot in front of your eyes when the thoughts are sunk. Possible to recognize your own pettiness and madness. So, for the moment, I am striving to stay sane.

It reminds me of when I started trying to incorporate the taiji walk into my everyday gait. My legs weren't quite strong enough to maintain it past a certain distance, yet when I lapsed back into the old way of walking, I felt ill. I preferred to sink my weight back down and let the legs work rather than fall back into former habits. That's what this is like. With the mind sunk down, everything is clearer, but it takes effort right now to keep it sunk. When it rises back up, the madness comes again, and I feel sick. Now, at least, I can push the mind back down, but there is some...mental strength required to keep it there. It took several months for my legs to build up to the point where I could keep from bobbing up and down as I walked. Perhaps it will take the same amount of time for my mind to stop bobbing up and down as I live.

Of Several Minds...

This past week, I think I finally figured a few things out. I've been in a great deal of pain since last February, but every so often it would...just...stop. I didn't know why, and invariably the surcease would not last for long, but there were these blessed moments of release. I think a big part of why I did so much hiking this past summer: looking for those moments of release. Those were even less lasting, but sometimes as I topped the rise and beheld the view before me...the beauty would overwhelm the pain.

The pain finally started fading in September. I started feeling more like myself. There were still some off moments, but overall I was above the "functional" stage I'd been at. Then last week I was able to observe one of the moments where the pain stopped. And realized that the only difference was that I had slid below the level of the bodily mind into...something else. The spiritual mind? Sounds too fancy. Maybe "the real mind." I had become so focused on the physical reality that I had lost touch with the real mind living beneath all that.

Could I have realized this sooner? Felt a bit less pain? I honestly don't know. I think the pain has to be felt, and moved through. Maybe I could have bought myself a few more respites, but that's about it. It was only after the pain had already begun fading that I realized it was all tied into the bodily mind. The real mind hadn't been touched.