Staying With The Method

   Yesterday, I was teaching the junior class about the story of Odysseus. There is much to say about this story, since it contains a lot of different mythical elements, but one of the central tropes is how Odysseus manages to avoid all sorts of pitfalls and temptations on the journey home. For example, his men land on an island of the Lotus Eaters, where the men are so allured by lotus flowers that they don't feel compelled to leave the island. Another example is the Sirens, beings who make such beautiful music that they allure Odysseus away from his journey home. Odysseus, ever the wanderer, needs to have his men chain him to the mast of his ship to prevent him from being allured by the sight of the sirens or be tempted to jump off the ship altogether.
   I think that the things that prevent Odysseus from "returning home" is analogous to what prevents people from staying on their meditation practice. I am convinced that it's not "sensations" the pose the biggest distraction, but rather our fascination with our thoughts. When a pain arises in my body, I don't just "think about" the sensation itself. Rather, I tend to write an entire story about it, adding gruesome details about what could be happening in the body. But what if one simply stayed with the method of practice and did not dwell on these experiences? It would be coming home to the mind itself which is the source of all thinking and emoting.
  Odysseus, like everyone else, makes his share of mistakes and succumbs to all kinds of temptations and dangers. It's notable that all the other members of his crew are killed, leaving only himself to survive and reclaim the home that was taken from him by the suitors. What does this "sole survivor" signify? I think it signifies the way thoughts eventually exhaust themselves, leaving the discovery of the mind as the last frontier and homecoming. A thought that one obsesses over starts out as a fascination, but when it's repeated it eventually becomes something to be overcome. In other words, something repeated over and over again starts to lose its appeal, because we realize how imprisoned we are to the thought. It only leads to more repetition of the "same" rather than the liberation it promises.