Cattāri Brahmavihārā

With my family having safely arrived my thoughts now turn to how I will use my time in their absence. My plans to spend extra time in practice have been somewhat thwarted by the fact of Ramadhan which saps my strength and deposits me squarely on the shores of exhaustion at 8:30pm every night.

This morning, for example, I awoke with a head that has yet to stop swimming and as I sat in meditation all sorts of unskilfull and unwholesome thoughts began to bubble up. I have learned from prolonged acquaintance that this seems to be a result of pushing too hard so it does not throw me into a panic as it used to. Nonetheless, I found myself having to switch my attention from the breath in order to deal with the torrent of images and intentions which could have very easily carried me off into perdition.

For the first time that I can recall I was able to give myself enough space and honesty to ask myself what the outcome of following these thoughts might be. What could I honestly expect to happen if I acted on them? I found that I truly couldn’t think of anything worthwhile and, on the flip side, the drawbacks were terrifying. As I contemplated I could literally feel the lust for these thoughts draining away until I was left with a firmer conviction not to entertain them (for the time being at least). 

Maybe it wasn’t the subject I had intended to meditate on but it was incredibly useful and edifying all the same.