The sun set some time ago on the mountain, and the sky is fading from a deep blue to an oily black. On cue, the laps about campus flicker to life, the library fills to capacity on every floor, and all across Ursinus people go about their evening business. Round the clock quiet hours begin today, though we shall see how long that lasts.
I sit in the school library, listening to the periodic typing of computer keys, the turning of notes or text-book pages, the occasional sigh of a poor pre-med student, and the occasional spastic creaking of the library's ever-squeaky chairs. You could spend all day in such a place, and you'd see and hear more or less the same thing, though it is generally far less crowded in the morning than in the evening.
Should you find yourself sad or unhappy about something, sometimes it is helpful to concentrate quite closely to the deatils of things around you. Too often one's mind can become very small and focused on a particular thing or collection of things that makes it restless and unhappy. A big mind, on the other hand, is quite open to whatever details the world as it is presents to itself. When you have big mind, you don't feel unhappy. I am not certain why this is, but it seems so. Perhaps it is because big mind isn't especially interested in a particular thing, such as oneself, or the destructive imaginings of a jealous mind. Big mind simply isn't interested in stroking an ego or getting worked up over little things.
Everyone has big mind I think, but it is often not well-developed. I also think that the society in which we live often discourages big mind, because big mind does not try to squeeze lemon juice from a rock, so to speak. It squeezes lemon juice from lemons, if that makes sense. If it wants a blueberry, it finds a blueberry bush in season. It does not complain if the blueberry bush is far away, or not yet in season. Big mind has a wide perspective, and is quite patient.
This sounds rather silly, but experience seems to support the idea. Quite often you and I and many other people run around thinking with little mind, focused on productivity and desires and fitting in and getting ahead. We get little mind, and our focus turns toward ourselves. We look at ourselves and thing well or ill of what we see; we look at others and do not see them as people like ourselves, but things in some way different. We get frustrated and tired and irritable when thinking with little mind. We do not live up to our potential when thinking with little mind, and as a result we often become even more bound up with little mind thinking. We get trapped, and sometimes we get out and sometimes we do not, at least not for a while.
When we lose ourselves in little mind, we can become unhappy, angry, frustrated, and limited to a great extent. Those unlucky enough to encounter great adversity under the influence of little mind may long feel its effect. A profound state of unhappiness may sometimes lead the sad thinker onto the path to big mind.
This is a strange post. Perhaps, kind readers, you will bear with me. It has been a strange day.
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