Observations from my Retreat

To continue from previously ("I'm so full of energy that I don't know what to do with it all."), the effect seems to have worn off, or at least ebbed enough that I feel rather well-balanced again. Lots has been going on in the past couple of days so naturally I can't clearly point to any particular causation anyway.

Anyway, more observations:

Two: I cling and crave much more than I realize, to my pattern of life, to what food I habitually eat, and so on. It's not simply mere wanting or desiring; it's rather the feeling that "things are not okay" unless I achieve the object of my clinging or craving.

Three: My awareness or knowledge of myself and human nature is not yet adequate, at least not in a working sense. That is, I seem to know enough about "the way I am" and "the way people are," but I seem to have difficulty acting on this knowledge in a habitual way. That is, many of my personal habits and near-unconscious responses to stimulus are based on other assumptions about human nature than I currently have.

Four: There is, in me, more vanity, particularly regarding the opinions of me that other people have, than I usually believe. Certainly more than I'm comfortable believing.

Five: My schedule was too ambitious. A lot of time was wasted realizing this. If I'd been more self-aware at the outset, such a realization would have occurred sooner, and thus some difficulty and frustration would have been avoided. I don't sit in judgement over myself over this; rather it's more evidence regarding the usefulness of mindfulness.

Six: I failed to understand how much work and energy I'd really need to prepare my own food and clean up afterwards.

Seven: Skill makes any task easier; conversely, lack of it makes any task more taxing, frustrating, and time-consuming. Even sweeping the floor has methods and useful techniques; it is possible therefore to be very bad at sweeping the floor.

Eight: (Follows perhaps from Seven above.) It is necessary to practice at just about everything. This, I think, is why it's so hard to, for instance, clean the bathroom after ignoring it for a month or two. Roughly, I forgot how to do it. This is probably a big reason I let it go for so long. Too many negative feelings were tangled up with the act of keeping my bathroom clean, because I unconsciously associated it with the frustration of being unskilled at accomplishing the task, and the additional frustration of not understanding this consciously.

Nine: Clinging and craving are counterproductive sources of disruption, imbalance, and emotional stress, even when the object of clinging and craving (that is, the thing to which one is clinging, or the thing for which one is craving) is seen as, or even really is, totally virtuous.

Ten: The effects on my body and mind from this retreat should, to benefit me the most, change my behavior forever.