Mental Flossing

People learn to respect the need for basic maintenance from early childhood – brush your teeth, wash between your toes, clean your room, do the dishes, … So, how is it that so few are ever taught to do any basic maintenance on their minds?

The mind - its programming, flexibility and tidiness - dictates the feeling, context and quality of all of life. Happenings and things are nothing more than what they are, until some mind processes them. And, for the most part, that processing is completely arbitrary.

Children see the world as a magical place. Adults assume this is because they don't know any better; and so, attempt to enlighten them to the truth of life's mundane nature. In fact, adults are just jaded; therefore, no longer see the specialness in the ordinary.

What if we could clear out all of the preconceived ideas and expectations that we hold as factual, and let the world be wondrous? How would it be if a tree was not just a word in your head, but that living thing right in front of you, holding decades of history, surrounded by a family born of its fruits, offering itself as home to many, shading you from the hot sun, which, even in death, will nourish the earth, feeding the next generation, or become fuel for someone's warming winter fires? A spider is not just a bug to be squashed or thrown outside, but a magnificent example of life in motion and a mirror of the interwoven nature of all of life.

Other people aren't extraneous beings, obstacles, stepping stones or competitors. They're our family – all of them. They're us. The feelings that arise when we connect with another on a deeply intimate level are available through interactions with anyone. We need only be open to it.

Our creative and intuitive faculties are drowned out by the incessant rambling of our futile efforts to define and contain the world inside our minds. Once we construct an image of how the world is, we begin to interpret and filter our views to support our suppositions. If we can let go of our thoughts and open to newness, we become more.

So, back to flossing. If we want to experience the world as a brighter place and continue to evolve as beings, we need to take some time, on a regular basis, to forget who we think we are and experience who we feel we are, to let go of what we think life is and relish how it feels to be alive.

There are a number of activities that can move one in this direction, but the only one specifically tailored to the pursuit, is meditation. A regular diet of daily, perhaps twice or thrice daily, meditation clears the clutter, clarifies priorities and view points, provides an ever expanding perspective and opens inroads for new possibilities of understanding and capabilities.

In a perfect world, this would be taught to the young along with feeding the cat and cleaning the litter box. In the real world (at least the western world), most will have to learn this on their own. Can we get along without it? Sure. We can also live with wax filled ears and rotten teeth. You make the call.