Dear Diary,
Yesterday, while striding along Kaunas riverside trails, I engaged in my favorite activity – exploring the inner button that allows switching myself between a meditative state evoking a light smile on the face and that usual one filled with anger, stress, tension, desires and other wonderful everyday companions. I toggled it back and forth with a naive, years-long hope of figuring out its operating mechanism so I could use it when truly needed – when you’re surrounded not by rustling Švenčionys Street trees with a bend of the Nemunas, but by a phone with a client calling straight from hell. And here’s what I noticed – upon turning off the meditative state, your attention hurtles forward and latches onto some person or situation causing you stress, weaving you both into a rather uncomfortable and tight embrace. Upon turning peace back on, attention, like a construction tape measure, snaps back and winds itself somewhere at your center. Figuratively speaking, non-meditation is the moment when you and another, you and others, you and a situation all find yourselves in one boat. You’re in a boat with your beloved – and you’re up to your ears immersed in concerns touching you both. You’re in a boat with the work team – stress and concerns come from other questions. You’re in a boat with a client from hell – yet others, with townspeople – more global, with countrymen – global. A stranger who flagged down a lift halfway and climbed in, a pair of girls on the trolleybus talking louder than proper – all of it annoys you, because at that moment both the lift and the trolleybus are your boat and you have to share it with others.
But it’s enough to step aside and a miracle happens. You don’t drown in the ocean surrounding the boat. You yourself become the ocean surrounding the boat. Capable of calmly and majestically observing, without analysis, criticism or emotion, those remaining in the boat. From somewhere to the side, from above, from afar, from wisdom and peace itself. How beautiful and interesting the passing pedestrian becomes, no stress is caused by a scooter whizzing past from behind right by your shoulder, the trees and the Nemunas as if echo your own peace. You’re no longer with all of that in one cramped space, you no longer need to rush to fix, change or avoid any of it. And the only thing troubling you is why you’re so foolish as to occasionally manage to live in cardinal opposition to what’s described above.
Stress? Sadness? Irritation? Simply answer yourself – with whom are you psychologically, with your attention, currently in one boat? Answer, and step away. That, probably, is the button to peace.
There. I said I brought a whole head full of thoughts for diary entries.
p.s. Andrius, sorry I didn’t get drawn into the discussion by messages yesterday – you can see for yourself what wonderful experiences I had immersed in, and you with “computer, computer” :-D
