Why am I playing this game?

By Simone Claridge · True Better You

I visit my family once or twice a year. Each time I try to look behind what is being said. What does each of them really want to say? What are they holding on to? Where is the attachment? The more I see it, the faster I can let go.

When family members argue, I see it as a game now. They get energized by it. Each one wants the person watching to take their side, and nobody really listens to the other. If I would agree with one, that one would feel right and supported, and the family stays the way it has always been, most likely everybody in their place.

I can hear the points now and acknowledge them without being hurt. Some points still pull me toward one side easily. Then I ask myself, why am I playing this game?

And I notice it is the same inside, with thoughts. Some of them are so contrary to each other. When we set an intention to change a habit, like not talking back when someone shares their opinion, practicing every day for a healthier lifestyle, or being friendly to a difficult person we deal with every day, it is amazing how many thoughts show up. Some of them hold their position, especially when the habit is deeply engrained and wants to stay in comfort.

Teacher Dao Xin (Wei) describes exactly this. The old habit works like an undercurrent in the subconscious, so the new program doesn't work well at first, and we need to decide again from deep in the heart. So it is normal.

What helps is to simply observe, and to stay present while watching our own inner talk, our storytelling. This is what Dr. Pang pointed to when he taught Teacher Dao Xin (Wei) to catch the inner thief: the reference framework makes a lot of stories about the person who triggers us, and then the emotions grow.

With clients I often ask, once they become aware of a thought: what would change if you didn't have this thought, or couldn't think it? What if the opposite thought, which is always there too, could speak up? Byron Katie helped many people meet their own storytelling this way. It fits the lineage: we look at the story and we don't follow it.

Then I get curious about the game itself. What is my game board? Who are the players, and what roles do they play? Teacher Dao Xin (Wei) says the reference framework plays different roles, like actors in a movie, and a central information tells it: now you should be angry. And what kind of game is it? Role play, chess, checkers, pretending, futurizing, tug of war, poker, a courtroom with judge and jury, hot potato, keeping score? The positions announce themselves just by setting a new intention to improve. Teacher Xu even says we should not play word games with Yiyuanti, so the mind can make a game out of awakening too.

But maybe that is not where we need to keep our focus. What if we simply return to that which is aware of all of it? That is the process of awakening, and I would like to share more about it next week. What is it then that we call awakening?

Every morning a group gathers to chant n̈ together, daily, 8–9am ET. No teaching, no performance.
We come as we are. We come for what we truly are.
And we stay conscious in it.

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With Mingjue LOVE,
Simone

With gratitude to Grandmaster Pang Ming, Teacher Dao Xin (Wei), and Teacher Xu, whose teaching this rests on.