Now that was all gone because of 4-cec. The old me returned, ferocious as ever. Restless, irritable and discontent on steroids. I’m not sure why, without a program of recovery that I read here, I feel that way. I just know I do.
But my condition proved to be short-lived. It was a Tuesday. Dave Smith, founder of Against the Stream meditation group in Nashville, walked into the DeWitt Building at Discovery Place. Inside, 24 freshly-sober alcoholics and drug addicts waited impatiently.
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He started speaking. I don’t know why I listened that day as I was still reeling in withdrawal from various narcotics. Something he said, though, caught my attention.
He talked about internal suffering. He talked about our propensity as alcoholics and drug addicts to conjure negative feelings and perspectives with a simple act of mind. And he said all this was possible in spite of our circumstances.
Dave asked us, “How much suffering do you take on as a result of your thinking?”
All my life, I’d been told I was a pretty smart guy. I had to admit, however, that I’d never considered this simple question.
Dave continued by saying, “I felt like my mind was basically torturing me… like a bully… so through meditation, we begin to ignore the mind on some level by paying attention to something else (the breath). We also begin to learn to just tolerate it.”
I wasn’t so sure about this guy with a hardened Boston accent and inked up arms. But I knew he made sense. And I knew I was sick of feeling the way I felt.
“When we get those hints of fear, those thoughts of the future, what’s going to happen two weeks from now, we don’t buy into it. How much suffering do you endure by believing what your mind tells you?” Dave was really starting to make sense now.
You see, all my life I’d taken my mind’s propositions as gospel truth. I never second-guessed myself. Sure I might question whether a course of action was best after a sequence of events, but that was usually due to an anchor of regret. Thought became action fast. Impulsivity was my featured trait. Foresight resided in luckier men. I’d become a slave to the dictates of my mind.
I knew I’d been this way since birth. It was a part of my blueprint. On that Tuesday morning, I decided I’d had enough. If meditation offered relief from mental bondage, consider me a monk.
Dave's words struck a chord within me. As he delved into the concept of internal suffering and the self-inflicted nature of negative thoughts, I couldn't help but reflect on the perpetual cycle of misery my own mind had subjected me to. The realization that my thoughts were not an absolute truth but rather a creation of my mind was both liberating and unsettling.
The idea of ignoring the mind's torment by redirecting attention to something else, particularly the breath, seemed like a novel approach. Dave's emphasis on learning to tolerate the mind resonated with my desperate desire to escape the incessant mental turmoil I had been experiencing. Despite my initial skepticism about a guy with a Boston accent and inked-up arms guiding me toward inner peace, there was an undeniable logic in his words.
The question lingered in my mind: How much suffering had I endured by blindly accepting the dictates of my own thoughts? Dave's probing encouraged me to question the validity of my mental narratives, the anxieties about the future, and the relentless fear that had haunted me for years. It was a paradigm shift from unquestioning acceptance to a deliberate examination of the mind's machinations.
As Dave continued to unravel the potential of meditation in breaking free from mental slavery, I made a decision that Tuesday morning. I was ready to embark on a journey toward inner peace, and if meditation held the key to release me from the shackles of my own mind, then I was committed to embracing it wholeheartedly. The allure of escaping impulsive actions and cultivating foresight became a compelling motivator, and I eagerly embraced the prospect of becoming a monk in my pursuit of mental liberation.