Mary O’Malley – In my experience, we all have three layers. The top layer is the controlling layer where most people’s minds operate. From a very young age, we have all been conditioned to struggle with what is showing up in our lives that we don’t like.
Most of the time, our attention is focused on the mind that creates thoughts all day, and we don’t see the vast sea of peace through which the thoughts flow. As we grew up, we were taught that we are a separate beings and that life is not safe. To manage this, the top layer is busy all day long, liking and disliking, wanting and resisting, planning and trying to figure it all out. But just when we think we have it all together, it all falls apart. And that is when most people turn to their compulsions (over eating, over shopping, over working, over worrying, as well as abusing drugs and alcohol) because we want to get away from what we are experiencing that is unpleasant.
Life offers you an amazing journey that will set free your struggling self if you will show up for it. The first step is to see that your attention is in the storyteller of your mind most of the time. You just aren’t aware of it.
When you truly step back and begin to see the thoughts flowing through your mind, you realize that your storyteller is really neurotic. It wants this, it doesn’t want that. Sometimes it makes you wrong, and sometimes it makes you right. It knows what it wants and it doesn’t know what it wants. All of this is stories in your head. And this is where most people live all the time. Just look at the evening news.
The second layer is made up of all the parts of yourself that you were conditioned to believe are not okay: your sadness, i.e. “big girls or big boys don’t cry;” your rage, i.e. “Don’t get angry at me.” Your confusion, doubt, helplessness, fear, terror, and shame all reside in that second layer. Human attention just follows thought wherever it goes. If thought says “I am sad,” you think you are sad. If thought says, “I am mad, you think you are mad.” But you are not your thoughts. Life is inviting you to use your attention in a way that most people never know. Human attention is an extremely powerful healer and alchemy happens when your attention and your immediate experience come together. This is where true transformation happens. It does not happen trying to get to Nirvana and it certainly doesn’t happen by trying to understand it.
Let’s say you are caught in rush hour traffic, and it takes you three hours to get home from work instead of the usual 1½. For most people, the mind gets upset and wants it to be different. What would it be like if all of a sudden you start getting curious? You might ask yourself, “What is the mind doing right now? What story is it making up? What does it like and what doesn’t it like? And, what is going on in my body right now?” You might notice it feels like there is an elephant sitting on your chest, or your solar plexus tightens, or your jaw is clenched, or your belly is constricted. In this moment of bringing your attention and your immediate experience together, your bound up energy begins to move and you begin to relax and feel more at peace.
Bound up energy is what the two top layers are about. The top two layers hold everything that you did not know what to do with when you were young. It is the part of you that thinks if you can just figure it out or if you can just do it right, everything will be okay. This is an endless game. But, you can learn the skills and techniques to access your bottom or third layer, which is the layer of ease and peace that is always with you. You have been so used to having your attention lost in the changing, resisting or fixing mind that you just don’t see it or realize it is there.
It all begins with a willingness to show up for life. So, when you can, begin to notice what is going on inside of you and you will soon notice that something begins to shift. You are on the path of Awakening!
SF Source Mary O’Malley Sep 2018