The Third Option
Our thoughts tend to take us to play again experiences of the past, and when not indulging in this they take us to indulge the future, and create scenarios usually centred around an often neurotic self-view of insecurity. We therefore live most of our lives in a dream world of past or future, both heavily identified by an insecure self that is the creator of suffering. When we discover stillness on the meditation cushion we find a third option beyond this turmoil. This option is not of the restless mind but a ‘place’ that we can take refuge in and discover the liberation of this present moment.
Comments:
This was a timely reminder ahead of our annual Trigonos retreat, about the balance between being sensible and planning, but also the need to retain living in the present and not get caught by indulgences and scenarios about the future. Āloka then links this to the suffering and the world that we create, from the past and into the future, and that we need to wake up to the present – the third option. Through meditation we can start to look at our mind and what it is doing, and begin to find the place of stillness that is with us all the time. A very helpful talk for listening to ahead of any retreat.