paying attention...for only a moment.

I had the box of cereal on the kitchen counter and then caught myself - I am home.  I have time.  Why default to the easy, boring and unsatisfying? I rethought it and took down my steel oats and began making some oatmeal and pulled out the juicer.   Beets and carrots greens and all, some ginger and apples to make a delicious glass of fresh juice.   Oatmeal finished in about 20 minutes, added some flax seeds and honey I bought from a local beekeeper.  My breakfast was flavorful, satisfying and took only about 30 minutes and yet I was moments away from mindless quick eating of cereal.   It made me realize how often I make choices and decisions on the fly with no thought or even clarity into what I am doing or why.

In my Shambhala class we are learning from Turning the Mind into an Ally.    Mindfulness is paying attention, holding to an object idea where Awareness is knowing what you are doing right at that moment or better each moment.   We are talking about how Mindfulness has three qualities:  Familiarity, Remembering and Non Distraction.  We need to know what we are trying to do, remember how to come back to this state and settle into it and not be squirming away with every breath.  I had the opportunity to become aware for a moment of this and work towards mindfulness for something as simple as eating.  How often in my life I am making decisions based on familiarity and habits?  All the time!

There was a study where someone's left brain and right brain suffered a lesion when the right brain was asked to close the door and did the left brain unaware of the request created a reason why they shut the door.  The mind created a story line to make sense of the activity - the mind invented a reason for the behavior.  My father always told me you could justify any behavior you wanted with logic, if it was what you wanted to do.  I have struggled my whole life with this concept.  How do you know what is real and how do I stay mindful of my life, my actions, and activities?  Is my motivation for my behaviors absent or because I have a whole story line created around why I want/need to do something, or do I really at the core of my being want to do it?  I am afraid of this whole line of thinking because I use this as an excuse not to be committed and to remain wishy washy on everything.  It all seems so overwhelming, the possibilities and the potential - it is easier to hide that risk, it is easier not to believe than believe, it is easier not to do than do.  Yet I keep coming back, I keep struggling forward, as I want to untangle myself.  Untangle myself from what though?