It is so easy a thing to be good and do good. It is easier still to be bad and do bad. It is easy to judge ourselves and actions as either. It is easier still to judge others and actions of others as either.
Pursuing a balanced path, one not of judgement, selfishness or ego, but a path of equanimity, is a great challenge. All the mindfulness I can encourage in myself has taken me a single step onto this road.
In the past, I've had many strong motivations. Each of them has played out leaving me accomplished but with an emptiness that cannot be described but that one undoubtably understands, although perhaps not on the surface. Never has one of them touched on my core beliefs in such a way as to temper and play off my value system such as my pursuit of mindfulness has.
I could speak of mindfulness until I could no longer, and one still may not "get it". Maybe one needs to be pushed there, by a great hardship, or a need for help and guidance that could only come from oneself. To meditate means to study oneself. To learn one's own true core values, and to learn one's own actions and reactions, emotions and desires.
The greatest gift it gives is a stable footing in life, to learn a certain lateral state beside pride and shame, to treat others with equanimity and fairness in all situations, to recognize and embrace equality.
Having felt like a cartoon character on banana peels in recent times, this stable footing is a boon to my psyche.
I can now see the doorway through which those who are religious find a certain peace in the nature of causation. However, this doorway in myself is of an empirical and secular humanist nature, devoid of superstition and lies to myself. It sits peacefully, like an archway of cold stone and moss, hundreds of years old, built for a humble purpose.
I have not reached it yet. But I'm taking one step at a time.
