cool dudes

• The mind is off on a thought train.
• So?
• So I will reign it in and come back to the stillness.
• Why bother?
• Because being human, there is not much time to get things figured out.
• What kind of things?
• Things other than pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain.
• There is an alternative?
• So they say?
• Who are they?
• The meditators?
• So who are they?
• Folk who pay attention to what goes on in their heads.
• Doesn't everybody do that?
• Everybody pays attention to stuff but only a few pay attention to attention itself.
• Sounds like 'introspection'?
• Something like that: thinking about thinking. Or perhaps better: being aware of what you are aware of.
• So what good does that do?
• It induces an altered state of consciousness
• So what alters?
• Your approach to being in the world
• How is it different?
• You become less selfish and more understanding of what other people are going through
• So what are other people going through?
• Life as a consumer in modern civilisation
• What is wrong with that?
• It involves grasping after the 'desirables' and trying to avoid the 'undesirables'
• Duh! Yeh! There is an option?
• Yup!
• Like what?
• Like realising that it is the 'I' that craves and that the 'I' is an illusion
• How does that help?
• No 'I' = no craving = release from the knee jerk reaction to fads and fashions = being a cool dude who passes easily through everything
• Sounds bland and boring
• Yup but those who get there don't see it like that. Those who get out of the rat race find bliss. A peaceful, easy feeling
• OK for some.
• Yup
• Strokes for folks?
• Yup