On Mindfulness

) I want to be a proper person and my Ego takes care of it. It has an important role both to protect me and to discipline me. It does everything to make me acceptable and functional in the society. My Ego is a combination of a body guard and a governess. And it wants me to be obedient. So it keeps my attention by talking all the time. It is a story-teller. It explains and organizes my life by assessing it continuously; it turns everything into words, sentences and thoughts; into comments, opinions and judgments. My Ego is actually a thought about me. But it believes that it is in charge and it actually is, because I yielded my authority and let it rule.

This false ruler is very choosy and fastidious; it approves of some behaviour and gets grumpy about others. It is particularly critical about some of the feelings appearing in me. They do not fit the story which it has created about me. And in order to keep them away it calls these feelings “negative”. It persuaded me that they are dangerous and harmful and should be removed. I tried and didn’t succeed. And I wonder, if these negative feelings are resisted by Ego they are not it (the Ego); obviously I am much more. And there is also a possibility that they are actually not negative, but that they are only unwelcome by the Ego. There is a possibility that I became a prisoner of my own story-teller. Honestly I do not like to be it any longer, I want to break free. And something tells me that the very “negative” feelings are the door to liberation.

So I turn towards them, not away from them, as I always was doing. It is time to have a proper look into desire, shame, fear, anger and guilt and all the other suppressed feelings. Yes, it is scary, but I know now that I can invite them into a safe place where they can finally tell their truth and I don’t need to do anything but listen. It is possible that there is nothing bad about them, nothing negative. I take the chance. I allow myself to listen. I do it in the safe and compassionate space of Meditation. I can deconstruct my Ego in this space and become a ruler of it not a servant to it. That’s how the liberation happens; by being attentive and mindful.