Practicing Non-Duality

The bus is typically crowded on the way to Finch Station. I was trying to practice the principle of being present with all the situations without judging or seeking, and I have to admit that it is not so easy to do. There are two approaches: one is to try to see beyond the sense of self-grasping, while the other is to harmonize with all the emotional states, knowing that they are also the essence of awakened mind. Both are very difficult approaches, but they are definitely worth trying.
   The problem arises when habitual states of like and dislike come up. This happens to me when I am not paying attention. I hear the sound of yawning, and I might think "I don't like this sound". I forget that the sound is just a sound, and I have already attached meaning to it around who is making the sound and why. If I recognize that the sound is just an energy vibrating through the ears, it isn't so irritating. I envelop and embrace the sound as one of the many energies passing through the mind, arising and then disappearing.
   The 'I' is also a tricky thing. It's experienced as a kind of solidity in the body, almost like a quiet refusal to go along with whatever is happening or emerging, a sort of 'resistance' to the ebb and flow of events. When there is a comfortable feeling or thought coming up, there is a tendency to hold onto it and push away everything else. Then there is the identification with the self: not only is there a tendency to grasp, but there is a tendency to take the grasping as a solid sense of 'I'. It's no wonder that the mind just moves from one resistance to the next. Even the 'ability' to resist 'resistance' is taken to be an achievement that the self labels as 'spiritual' or 'progress'. In fact, this feeling of progress is just as short-lived as any other feeling, and it's also a cause of suffering. Observing the self's grasping is already enough, but I add to it the desire to get rid of the self altogether, as though doing so would promise me eternal freedom from pain.
   The alternate way is to see that even the grasping is a function of the awakened mind that isn't defiled. A wave can never get away from being part of the water or the ocean.