#456 Awakening to Things as They Are

     We progressively awaken to the moment-to-moment reactions we have to life by noticing how each reaction is preceded by a felt physical sensation. Two amazingly frequent sensations:
     1) closing off, tightening / hardening of the body - particularly the heart-mind - towards stimuli that we negatively judge. This is aversion or hatred - a rigid, adversarial reaction.
     2) aching hunger - particularly in the gut - towards stimuli we judge to be enticing, desirable. This is craving or clinging - a wanting, wishing, pining away for, desperately desiring to keep reaction.
     In aversion / hatred we're running from / fighting off stuff, in craving / clinging we're running after / desperately hanging-on to stuff, based on the fundamental misunderstanding: that things as they are, are unacceptable. 
     And how actually are things as they are? Fluidly changing, ephemeral - far more like inner transient energies than solid external chunks of matter, that can either be accumulated in our bedrooms, or hauled far away to be buried.
     These are not dogma, simply observations at a given stage of mindfulness meditation practice. From a Western psychological perspective, it represents a normal, healthy shift from rigidity towards psychological flexibility & accepting reality.

St. Andrews by John England   http://www.fogforestgallery.ca/bios/bio_england.html