I did something very disruptive to my consciousness this weekend out of ignorance. I was my wife’s birthday and was at an outlet buying her a card. The gentleman in front of me was buying lottery tickets for game called Power ball. The jackpot was at 183 million dollars and my wife was born on 3/18. For the first time in my life I bought 5 one dollar tickets (big spender). What followed was very disconcerting. My mind kept leaving the presence and day dreaming about being rich. Things, attachments and delusions took over. I had flights of fantasies about arranging pay outs. It became over whelming. It took me 2 hours of meditation to center again. As a practical matter I would suggest you leave the lottery alone. MU

A journey: ;-)

I did

my consciousness

my wife

I was

my life

I bought

my mind

I had

it took me

I would

What if we can do the lottery with clarity and awareness?

Its not that difficult to 'get Satan behind thee' in these circumstances. Maybe your inclination to riches is a little stronger than mine, but I'm sure you can see now just how insubstantial thoughts like that are?

In the Nyingma (ancient) school of Tibetan buddhism there is the practice of 'mindfulness of mind'. Where the 'object' of continious, everyday mindfulness is the movement of the mind... thought/emotions. In a sense this is very direct mindfulness; it deals directly with the mind and how it reacts to the world. The method is very simple, as in many methods of meditation, when a thought or emotion is detected it is simply percieved directly, not fabricated or thought on, welcomed or rejected. When percieved thus the thought goes away and there is generally a little moment of stillness and quiet. The method develops an equinimity towards thoughts and emotions, the practitioner comes to view thoughts and emotions of all kinds as not the stuff to particularly attach to or avoid. Its generally practiced after there has been some experience with formal sitting meditation practice I think; there needs to be a level of awareness and some stability of mind.

Regards,

Harry. 

I am sorry if it was boring or if it upset you that I used your pronouns. I was trying to point out where you listed you were during the course of the events you layed out. As if (please pardon my assuming) you were always there as the ultimate balance of the adventure spinning in and out of your experience.

" did something very disruptive to my consciousness this weekend out of ignorance"

you did?

'It took me 2 hours of meditation to center again. "

Someone's center is anothers left?

"So castles made of sand

slip into the sea

eventually"

~Jimi Hendrix

"close your eyes what do you see?"  

  "tick, tick, tick"

blue light !

hmmm. I'm not sure what the light(s) are...  this one came from like a hole in the screen

Quote: "b$Ng0 £inG0"
.........

and Bingo was his name ........O

oh... are you talking about the dream of being there when someone was being born dream last night? where you there too?