January 9, 2014

So I have this box.  It’s an imaginary box but as we all know, imaginary is just another form of real.  Imagine means to create an image.  You build something.  You can build a bird house or a poem but what we call imaginary is usually just built in your mind although it can be given another form in another reality. This accounts for everything created by the human race, which all started as something built in the mind – as imagination.  Ultimately nothing “real” is ultimately real, whether solid or imaginary, because nothing is what it seems to be.  It’s all experience, and all experience is awareness taking form. Some forms we call imaginary and some we call perceptions.  We give meanings to things but meanings are all imaginary.  Best not to believe anything too solidly, including this.  :  )

Anyway I have this box and I find it very useful.  Anytime I have any negative or un-useful thought, feeling, image, or whatever, I throw it in the box.  The box isn’t a furnace or a wood chipper so anything I toss in there isn’t destroyed, which I find ineffective, but just removed from my immediate attention or consideration.  It’s like an opening to a bottomless pit.  This works very well for me.  It gets my mind off the thing and I feel like I’m starting fresh, clear, and unaffected.  Kind of like when you discard unwanted Poker cards for something better. Or maybe like when you just fold.  I use “Le Box”  mostly with thoughts I consider ego based or which I feel are leading me astray in my movement toward awakening, especially during meditation or self inquiry.   It really beats just trying to ignore them.

But the key is the attitude accompanying throwing something in the Box. You accept that the thought (or whatever) is there but that it has nothing to do with the truth of what you are, and has no intrinsic veracity.  There is no questioning about why you had the thought, no fighting with it or dealing with it in any other way – you just chuck it.  Get it off the game board.  No conflict – it just wasn’t serving you.  It’s like spilling something on your sock – you just take it off and get another sock. You don’t burn the sock.  Well I guess that depends.

For example, thinking about how to not have any thoughts, during meditation (which is thinking)! Or thinking about how it will be when I’m enlightened, which is the separate “me” fantasizing about the “future” of my “story” while all these concepts are illusory.  “Shwoop” – right in the Box.  Most of the things I throw in the Box are very subtle thoughts and attitudes that are ego based and which get in my way.  These are hard to describe and I’ve forgotten most of them.  Cuz I threw ‘em in the box!  Ultimately everything will end up in the box as clarity continues to evolve.   Hmmm, just threw that in the box.  Why?  You had to be there – in my mind.  It’s one of those subtle things.

If you wish to try “Le Box 1.0”, well, you just downloaded it to your mental data bank for a free trial.  I consider it  “shareware” for the mind – mindware.  You may send me a $5 donation if you find it useful.   :  )    Thanks!     Pip