One thing mindfulness meditation practice has done is made the doings in my brain more obvious. Not that the contents of my thoughts have ever been that subtle: “Pay attention to MEEEEE!” “I’m HUNGRY!!!!” “GIMME that!”
But this morning, my awareness sneaked up and caught a thought red-handed: the thought that if I work on making really lovely pictures, even excellent pictures, my blog will become better known. Because, you know, “Pay attention to MEEEEE!”
All my girls who create for a living (and you know who you are and what it takes), you recognize this perilous thought, a thought that adds tentacles of expectation and worthiness to what can only be accomplished by turning away from everything except the inner light. You have followed this enchanting seducer yourselves, blindly, unconsciously, 10,000 times, just like me, not even realizing you were hypnotized. It makes so much sense: if you do excellent work, you will be rewarded. But these rules don’t apply here. Why not? They just don’t.
Having walked in on this thought having its way with my brain (in flagrante baby), there is nothing much to do except keep working, and be very, very brave. Because beyond that thought lies a field (it might even be Rumi’s field), outside the realm of reward and justification, where there is no reason to turn my eye toward my life; and there is no telling what wonders I might see there.
what is beautiful remains 