The Dude Will Abide

Excitement prevents stability.                                                                                                                        Lethargy causes laxity.

The goal is calm abiding.

The dude will abide.

When your mind is too intense, and you experience excitement, you need to loosen it, like loosening the strings of a guitar a bit.  Similarly, when you have laxity, your mind is not intense enough, so you need to increase its intensity by making it a little more taut, like tightening the strings.  My mind is like a fine stringed instrument, one that Peter Townshend has bashed into a bank of Marshall amplifiers repeatedly or that Jimi Hendrix has set on fire.

"The force behind developing concentrated meditation is mindfulness, which is the ability to stay with an object, not allowing distraction.  You exercise mindfulness by putting your mind back on its object of meditation every time it falters, which will happen time and time again."

Here are the three greatest gifts that Alcoholics Anonymous has provided me:

1.  A working God, a kind God, a positive God, a non-threatening God who talks a lot about heaven and never mentions hell.

2.  A community of people who have made my life a complete joy.

3.  And three is the tricky, irritating one: the imperitive to ruthlessly, relentlessly analyze my inner workings so I can find out what's wrong with me and quit trying to find what fault with other people, places, and things.

It's not them - it's you.