Watching my mind

This afternoon, as I was grading papers,  I noticed, yet again, how often some aspect of my consciousness subverts my determination to stay focused and on-task. There are many times when I am gripped by this temptation to get distracted--whether by trips to the refrigerator for...whatever presents itself to eat, or by various thoughts, obsessions, or fantasies, or--even worse--the temptation to simply google something for the hell of it, and get drawn into the endless, often craven distractions of the Internet or YouTube. Often after indulging in such idle and pernicious distractions, torpor sets in, tempting me to go take another brief nap, which often--despite setting the alarm--ends up being anything but brief. And so important tasks get postponed, again and again.

While I am by no means alone in this tendency to give in to distractions, I may have it worse than many, for--had the diagnosis existed when I was young--I would most certainly have been labeled "ADD"--Attention Deficit Disorder. (When I mentioned this to my Dean one time, she--in her unflappable coolness--said "Of course; I knew that.")  I generally don't go in for such labels--they seem inherently abusive and simplistic, reducing a complex personality to a mere set of symptoms, assumed to be genetically embedded and hence inescapable.

Buddhist teachings suggest otherwise. The Buddhist texts list and classify these as "afflictive emotions" personified as Mara, and their antidote is, as always, neither to repress them nor to indulge them, but simply notice them as they arise, and practice simply acknowledging their existence, and then (when you are ready) letting go of them.  These afflictive emotions include also the feelings of self-loathing and self-flagellation that often arise in the wake of getting seized by a distraction or temptation and lured away from our responsibilities--we can simply observe and let go of those feelings as well.

This is not easy, of course; if it were, we would not have anywhere near as many crazy, screwed up, neurotic, self-destructive, demoralized people walking around out there.  But nor is it impossible. Like everything else in Buddhism, it takes practice, and we can always start over, no matter how times we have failed or relapsed into bad habits.  No matter what happens in our interior weather--even in the tornado-like vortex of despair and self-loathing--we can always start over--by breathing, observing, and letting go.  This is, for me, one of the greatest gifts of Dharma practice: our ticket out of Hell.  The minute we return to focus attention on our breath, we are no longer in the grip of distractions or afflictive emotions--we simply can observe them like a movie--watch the mental impulses toward distraction arise and dissipate, neither acting on them nor wishing they were otherwise, but simply watching our own minds with the same patience and compassion we aspire to extend to everyone else--and then, when ready, returning to doing good work and keeping in touch.