Increasing awareness: The undetermined mind

I've spoken before about having an undetermined mind; A mind focused and aware: that understands and experiences life like a person climbing a staircase in the dark. Where each stair lights when you step on it and not before. No looking up at the top stair or looking two stairs ahead. It's one stair at a time. It is a state determined not by desire or aversion but through the clear force of equanimity.
But to get there I determined, (no pun intended) arrival at having an undetermined mind, or awareness, comes via a very determined awareness. An awareness with intention. Tools such as meditation are often used as an aid to help increase our level of awareness. Martial arts, dance, playing music, acts that produce a forgetting of the self, can help us to experience the now in its fullness. With practice, we slowly empty the cup of self focused mind and there is just, "Look". That is why we practice. For those times when life can get messy. Our suffering is lessened through a mind that takes one stair at a time - An acceptance and a non-judging view of the present moment.
But along with our practice comes a continual deepening. It's not like we just come to a place of heaven and we're all given halos and harps. Our practice allows us to push through to greater depths of wisdom, compassion and stillness. Once, the stress of losing a relationship stretched the bounds of our equanimity. Later, perhaps the loss of a job; a death, a divorce. We must press on and experience our This Being Human and see what it has for us.
Last night I was driving upon the road and had to pull to the side for an oncoming ambulance. Not an unusual occurrence mind you, but following closely behind was a police cruiser with it's blue lights on. There are times that I lock my basement door from the outside as I have done a million times before. What do these two experiences have in common? The pain of suicide. It insidiously slithers through your mind as an ugly viper. Multiple threats, cuttings and attempts are etched upon my mind. I guess they achieved their purpose: guilt, powerlessness, fear. Fear that it is her in that ambulance. Fear that I would find her in the basement. The volume of emotion that I would feel if in fact she were to succeed scares me deeply. I fear the ignition of a nuclear explosion. People who know nothing yet have inserted themselves into our relationship like some expert on our marriage and divorce. You who have been in my house less than five times and have plied my wife with alcoholic ambition.
People talk about moving on and I am comforted in knowing that the pain of divorce is universal although through the process you truly do feel all alone. But to move on, truly move on, you just do it. It is hard. No shit. But I like to think of the analogy of the Space Shuttle. At lift off, the greatest amount of power and strength is required at the start to have the Shuttle lift-off, move on. During the first two minutes of flight the two rocket boosters produce over 80% of the thrust needed to move the Shuttle closer to weightlessness. After the rockets are jettisoned there is still much work to be done to push her into position enabling the Shuttle to break through those last layers of atmosphere. Then, at long last she pushes through to orbit where she begins her move into Earth's gravity.
It is hard at the start: requiring all your strength to move on. There is a reason why they say that time heals all wounds. But time will not do it all. Moving on requires something of you. Thrust, power, might and intention. Or we can do nothing at all and we'll find ourselves stuck in anger and remorse finding our conversations littered with talk of divorce, pain, sadness.
TaoSpring is my moving on.
Stay tuned.