When we "look away" from what is right in
front of us we risk blowing up into some
sort of BIG balloon. You know, a hot air
balloon. But in this case, it's when we let our
thoughts of craving blow us up and we get
carried away with them. It starts by "looking
away" through a sense door. We sense something
we want and start to blow up.
Perhaps for a nanosecond we feel some
sense of pleasure but these thoughts soon get
unsightly and we land in some voracious mind
state. It can happen anywhere and at anytime.
We might be cooking, cleaning, getting ready
for bed, getting ready to leave for work, sitting
down at our desk, talking on the phone...you name
it and we are vulnerable to a hot air lifting us off
into some craving angst over something
we imagine will satisfy us.
Urges come in any shape or size. And before we know
it we expand and distend our wishes up over what
we are doing and where we are. We all know this sense
as being "full of it!" This blown up situation often ends
in, you got it, deflation. Everything around us seems
decreased, puny and inferior to the BIG balloon mind.
The deflation leads to restlessness and anger. The work
for us is to see this inflation as soon as the mind begins to
drift upward in the hot thoughts. Come
back to where you are without being strung high on a
string of hot air.
A spiritual term for this is "mindfulness." There are remedies.
"Just enough" is one remedy. It's a guardian in the mind.
This, whatever it is, is "just enough."
"Just enough, thank you." An easy to remember mantra.
