When I am looking at winners, they are involved with something worth working for… involved, as in action about.
When I am looking at you, I see you being self-involved, 90% of the time. 2 on how to live Aikido (which I really love) in everyday life. I have scanned the part where it teaches centering… and you can read it here.
left-click and save as… Centering pdf
- Self-involved… I haven’t been able to find a definition I agree with… so let’s be crass: you are self-involved if anyone would think or say: dig your head out of your ass… please…, or you have your head up your ass… or nobody home…}}
And even when you look not so self-involved, your actions, your blaming, your finger-pointing belies the underlying self-involvement… you feel that you are a superior person when others seem smaller.
As long as your biggest concern, expressed in your attention and actions, is yourself, you will be miserable, guaranteed.
Did you notice that I didn’t say: expressed in your words, in your facebook posts… no, your words lie a lot.
I meant: you’ll have your attention on yourself, and your actions will be irrelevant, not building anything, not growing anything, including you… leading you to be split, and miserable.
The “self” your attention is on, is your small self… how you are perceived by others, what you want, what you don’t want, what you like and what you don’t like, what you are afraid of.
The small self… directed squarely to the outside, the world. You sit in your ego… change is impossible.
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is part of awareness.
Awareness is not focused, Awareness is an open state. It sees everything, hears everything, feels everything. Being aware of self is part of it: awareness includes self, but doesn’t focus on it.
In fact, awareness doesn’t focus.
The best way to experience is to look at the world… wherever you are, in your office, in your bedroom, at Starbucks… Ok, don’t focus. Now, put your arm or hand in the picture without losing the whole.
Now, you are there, among all the things that are in your cone of vision, field of vision.
Don’t focus on anything, and don’t think about what you see. Just take it in.
Whatever you actually see, is part of your awareness. The moment you single out any part with labeling, you lost the awareness, and you are now in your mind.
Mind cannot be self-aware… it is not built for that.
Now, go one step further: see what you see, including your arm, and start including in your awareness what you feel. Don’t label anything, don’t focus, don’t move your attention. Remember: labeling it, focusing puts you in the mind… no more awareness.
Now, include what you hear… without losing awareness of what you see and what you feel.
And if you are really good: include the thoughts, without being hooked by them.
Notice that you didn’t have to think those thoughts. They are mind’s automatic function, like dreaming.
If you are a beginner, you can hold onto awareness maybe for a few seconds.
It is worth practicing… ideally you want to be able to live in awareness, even be aware when you are conversing, when you are reading, when you are driving.
Your tendency to dream yourself powerless, your tendency to be hijacked by everything, your tendency to have no core from which you live, is one of the most important elements of your misery.
I have read and been teaching centering to my students. I have learned it a long time ago, and just recently read a book 1Aikido in Everyday Life: Giving in to Get Your Way
