'Paradoxically, a running commentary actually distracts me from a deeper engagement with myself and the environment I am in. Whenever I am talking about myself, I am not being myself, I am re-membering then performatively re- presenting myself. I cannot be listening and commenting at the same time. When I am talking about anything, I cannot hear other people, understand other people, relate better with other people.
When I am worshipping at the temple of me I cannot even sense, let alone respond to the presence of the true nature of reality, that is all around and unacknowledged within me. I drown it in a deluge of chatter, shallow observations, the grubby carapace of useless comment and vacuous analysis. Even though I might aspire to being a Buddhist, I talk far too much about the theory, the practice, the outcome or the lack of it, the goal or the non-goal, the moment or the non moment. Far more than I actually put the theory into action.
Life is similar to a fleeting and ever moving feast. But if I live as though its a series of endless courses of junk food, that needs consuming quickly before the next one comes along. Then I will find no value in the rich flavour of the wind and the enlivening taste of dawn rising. Ending up so busy compiling a review in my head for my blog, to really notice what is actually there in front of me.'
An edited and further adapted extract from my Morning Journal
Originally written 23rd September 2025
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