RE: Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys: Is Mindfulness And Nonattachment An Emotional Bypass?
I do think if we arent letting it flow through us, we are doing it 'wrong' ... ah damn judgey labels again.. meaning, we have not got the true teachings. We shouldn't (ugh, should) be wanting it to be one thing or another, just what is. So getting wrapped up in.the experience of another and their 'circus' is getting attached to their 'what is'.
On the same hand, how much do we enter into a responsibility to recognise and acknowledge what the other might feel through their conditioned responses? Because it seems uncaring to ignore it (there is my empathy as a condition of neurological response to stressors again) .. but kinda wiser to let them figure it out and not water their angst? Knotty circles.
I know as soon as a guru (aka wise friends, myself) alerts me Im getting caught up (attaching) its an immediate warning to pull back to what is and my reactions. Sometimes that IS concerted self analysis... why is it I respond this way? To me, that pulls me back to the self, having time to recognise all those layers.. neural, social, biological... that gave rise to this response to that circus or that monkey, and thus sit with what truly is, rising sensation not a constructed, subjective response to thought forms arising.
Im not even gonna read back on this response ... whatever.
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Yah. Nice stream of consciousness there....
The dynamic complexity of the ‘Other’ is another dimension to all of this.... which I wanted to include... but that would’ve made the post a lot longer. Because we don’t live in bubbles, we live in communities.
I guess... if I’m getting ‘affected’ by something then my ‘affect’ (emotions) are moving. Hence, sit and experience it, let it go where it wants, let it do what it needs to do, not attaching thoughts/beliefs/stories to any of it, watch it transform and eventually dissipate ...
We still need to ‘deal with’ the ‘Other’ though... but now we aren’t driven by reactive temperaments which are mostly going to be conditioned responses.
This is just my hypothesis, mind.... by allowing emotions to flow and eventually dissipate, they leave a vacuum; and nature being what it is (abhorring a vacuum) the space is created for the true nature of the Self to emerge, which can only be humane and compassionate.
Thus approaches the ‘Other’ with this, rather than the conditioned temperament.
In any case.... if it were my monkeys, then I’ve dealt with them without hurting the ‘Other’.
And then approach the ‘Other’ and their monkeys with humaneness and compassion, and hopefully be able to aid them with their monkeys without getting hurt and hopefully modelling a different way of being.
Critiquing this stuff... I think we do have a lot of expectations of how we should experience something, I think it’s a case of letting it all simply be what it is.... which might also not have the fairy-tale ending we want it to have.... because the ‘Other’ may well decide they like the circus, they like the monkeys and set them loose on you regardless!!
In which case... again, the Self has allowed emotion to flow, it transforms, and we remain in state of 仁 rén...
Crikey. Talk about a stream of consciousness...
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I LOVE a stream, me xx
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