spiritual reference points

Directing attention into the body creates a nice experience of feeling grounded. For me, it also perpetuated a belief that I am a separate person doing well with my practice of being more grounded in life. Sometimes attention would attend to thought more and I would feel like a person who was not doing well with my spiritual practice. So I was either a person getting closer to spiritual enlightenment or a person who had regressed and lost progress. This was my new reference point, another way of identifying who I was. Our minds are trained so well at finding identity and ways of referencing who we are. This mindfulness practice was actually about loosening identification with thought and yet it contained a new way of identifying as either a person good at spiritual practice (thus “getting there”) or poor at practice (“never going to get there”). So I could look out at others and compare myself as more or less present than they were. Sneaky dualism, “I am more present than that person [expansive feeling],” or “that person is so much further along than I am [sinking feeling]”.

The spiritual path contains lovely experiences, particularly since self-esteem tends to be so fickle. The spiritual path can offer experiences of being good at something and sensations of freedom. When attention has been so focused on thoughts about how inferior or unlovable I am, it feels great to discover the option to move attention away from these thoughts. Be wary, a new reference point will likely form. Maybe I am not an unlovable or inferior person anymore, but maybe now I am a spiritual person. Still separation, still dualism. If there is a realization that spirituality has become a new reference point, be gentle not to use this discovery as yet another reference point. For instance, “oh no I’ve been using mindfulness as a reference point, thus I’m not as far along as I thought”. So referencing can go on and on.

As quick as we let go of one reference point, the mind will find a replacement. It is more helpful to recognize what is beyond referencing. The awareness of all reference points. Then the mind can go on referencing and this movement is seen as simply an appearance as well. “I am this that and the other”. “I am greater lesser or equal”. All just the way the mind is wired to move. When this movement is not believed in or cared about because we know who we are beyond this movement, than this kind of referencing does seem to quiet down. But only because the belief in it has broken so there is no holding onto reference points OR fighting against the appearance of referencing.

3 Responses to “spiritual reference points”

1. Abdul says:

   December 3, 2011 at 8:18 pm

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