Grasping for the thing you are not doing

The vicious cycle in the whirlwind of activity

I’m sorry, Dear Reader, it feels like it has been a long time.

It’s not for lack of trying, I have been very busy.

Trust me, no one feels worse about it than I do. I really want to write down all of my thoughts on curiosity, love, and the examined life. This collection of articles is my greatest joy.

But when life happens and I am caught in the whirlwind of action and reaction, it is a torturers tool of suffering...

Because I’m grasping for it.

It is a vicious cycle. I cannot find the time to write to you, I get lost in the thought that writing to you is what I should be doing, I anguish that I am not writing, I bargain, I lose track of what I am doing, I fail to plan time to write and just crave writing all the more for not doing it... and on and on.

Grasping and aversion for impermanent things is the source of all dissatisfaction with life. And all things are impermanent (except maybe consciousness, but more on that in a different post).

The Buddha’s wisdom holds true after all this time. Easy to say, hard to do.

We want good things, for ourselves and our loved ones (and all people, really); we hope to avoid bad things for all people. The intention of loving-kindness is positive and an indication of wisdom, it is the ever-changing-thing that we want or want to be rid of that is the problem.

Now that I’m here—writing—where is all that moaning about not writing? Did it do me any good? Even if it led to a definitive plan, it was still less mindful of the nature of that present moment than just making the plan... without the attitude.

While I am writing, I should write; when I am not writing, I should not write... and not grasp.