Places We Wander

So I came up with this line last week....

Often times, we let our mind wander
to places it shouldn't be in.
As our ego quietly whispers
"Stay here, this is where you belong"

I was inspired by the idea of meditation. How a lot of times, we let our mind wander everywhere. And the purpose of meditation is to train it so it doesn't run like a wild baboon in Africa. When we are not meditating, we're not really aware of where we our minds are. We let them go everywhere too. Sometimes in places that it shouldn't be in. And I'd like to equate this with suffering. 

And then there are times where our mind arrives in a place it should be in. But we don't want to leave, and I'd like to equate this with desire. A false illusion.

So yeah there are times our mind is in a place it shouldn't be in - when there are other far more beautiful places that it can be in. But as the Buddhist teaching of impermanence goes, these beautiful places don't stay forever either. When we don't want to leave such a place, although we know that it's not gonna last forever, that's when our desire kicks in. If you get what I mean.

At the same time, these places are actually created by our minds. It's like a projection of places that we create for our mind to travel to. Naturally, just like everything else, these places are impermanent. And our ego is trying really hard to keep this place intact, so that our mind can stay here as long as it wants. But as our ego struggles hard, the place dissipates and then we're awake from that illusion.

Have you ever experienced that uncomfortable feeling you get after you're angry about something? Usually you felt it for hours, or even days. This is when your ego is trying to keep this "angry palace" intact inside of you. And it's pretty tiring isn't it. And then after a few days you felt okay again, and you learn to let things go. That's when your "palace" is destroyed and your mind is off to somewhere new.

However when you learn to train your mind, your mind will be equipped with the idea of impermanence. Your mind will know which places to go and which places to avoid. And when your ego tries to convince your mind to stay, your mind naturally leaves because it knows it is up to no good.

We are all great painters on this great canvas of emptiness.

With impermanence as our paint.

And time as our brush.

To be continued!