Vigilance + discipline = responsibility for self.

This formula has come up for me recently.

Vigilance is not an effortful process but a relaxed being aware of the times you leave the core of your being. For me, it’s noticing when I leave the quiet emptiness that is deep inside. There is a very subtle movement away. The movement is like looking for something outside to notice – such as – the words someone uses, the sensation in my body, the thoughts I think. And the next step is giving what I notice a meaning, judging and then creating a story around that. Which leads in a train of thinking that has many side tracks all leading into a tangle! Can be entertaining and time consuming! Especially when I try to figure out which thoughts to believe. Or even how to stop them. Or WHAT TO DO!!

So vigilance is the noticing………………… and then there is discipline – stopping the movement. Of course, there is no stopping if one doesn’t notice. The choice does not even exist when it’s not noticed. So vigilance first.

The discipline is to keep on choosing to not move. Every time, every moment. (Cos I’m human and the movement is going to want to happen!)

This is total responsibility for yourself, for myself. Responsible for whatever pops up in any moment. Nothing to do with anyone else. Nothing to do with anything outside of me.

And why would I want to not move from the essence of who I am? Why would I want to stay here?

Because, when I stay here life is lived from truth. It’s peaceful and it’s love. When I stay here, there is quiet emptiness – there is no stress, no tangle of thoughts, no suffering, no egoic me. It is nothing and it is everything – beautiful everything.
I thought I was going to write about discipline as meaning having a daily walk, eating healthy meals, doing what I need to do in the moment. And I didn’t because I realized that discipline is stopping the movement – that’s all.

The daily life discipline follows naturally from that. Right action happens as it needs. Jobs get done, people get contacted, decisions get made. Even if fear arises, even if anger arises, even if grief arises, even if excitement arises.

Ahhhhhh, so good, so real.