Our minds are a familiar place we go to sort out reality, to understand who we are and our place in the big picture. So many things elude us and we have so many questions, often which tickle the imagination and perhaps give us a single string of life that penetrates only so far down within. Those questions reflect our curiosity, and our wonder for the world, they reflect a hope that perhaps one day we will be able to fill in the gaps to the grey areas that do not seem to make sense so we can start to master that which eludes us.

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The mind has given us so much, it has given us language, math, physics, theories, hypothesis, and the capacity to reflect on ourselves in both concrete and abstract ways. The one thing I have not been able to ignore, however, is this gigantic blind spot in the mind. With all of its endless meanderings that it is capable of, and its capacity to plan and create in our material world, I notice that there is this one thing that continually seems to elude us- this blind spot that is there waiting for us to unveil its true nature, a blind spot perhaps many of us are not even aware of.

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That blind spot, for me, is this grey area, the part of reality we perhaps cannot explain, as in the totality of the moment there are a myriad of processes happening on the physical and mental level as we sense our reality, then in the moment I cannot ignore that there is something hidden, something that perhaps we have missed, and if we start to pay attention in just the right way, that truth can begin to unveil itself. 

In one sense we are almost numbed by our minds, or shall I say numbed by culture, as we have lost a sense of alertness that perhaps our ancestors had prior to 10,000 years ago. An alertness that kept us alive, on our toes, connected with ourselves and our surroundings. An alertness that spoke to a different relationship with the Earth and the natural world. One that was able to speak through our ancestors in a way that reflected an awakening that exists for what we know now as 'special people'. It’s hard to have that alertness to what is present within us and our surroundings when we are inundated and distracted by the mundane, our things to do, and even technology. In other words, we do not need to have that alertness to survive nowadays, it is not a capacity that is selected for. Rather, what is selected for is knowledge of the social panorama we have built, knowledge of culture, knowledge of how to survive in our world, all of which comes with a sense that something is missing, anxiety, depression, and this absorption in technology that, in one sense, puts us asleep. 

We do not need to be able to recognize our relationship with nature anymore to survive, we do not need to feel the presence of our body, our heart beat, our absorption in the moment. In fact, to be able to do that is a rather frightening ability because it means dropping all of the things we are preoccupied with and entering a doorway that is kept closed that leads our attention inwards. To do that challenges all of the things that we unconsciously use to survive in our day to day life. Our capacity to think about what we need to do for the day and our capacity worry and sort things out both reflect our known way of so called keeping 'solid ground' under our feet.

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Yet, we recognize how we are predominately unhappy, so then we do things that help us decompress, that distract us, or that allow for dopamine release, such as exercise. But, the blind spot is still there, almost like this doorway to a room that you made a contract with yourself to not enter. Why? Because that room is the storehouse of all things unpleasant, perhaps painful memories, trauma, issues you do not know how to deal with. It’s all buried in that room that you keep locked shut, and since it is locked shut, and perhaps has been shut for so long, it is hard to even think about going there or even feel the presence of this doorway from the outside. 

That’s the tricky thing, the present moment is this place where if you are going to really feel, to experience that alertness, that peace in the moment, it’s pretty hard to ignore that doorway you keep closed. Both go hand in hand, either that, or you have mastered the art of being present and ignoring what lies within. Well, I guess that is the way it is now for a lot of us, but it’s because of that reason that we now have a culture that is inundated with distractions and entertainment, all there as coping mechanisms, this place to help us decompress, to forget, because when all of the commotion stops, when we no longer have to engage in the behaviors and activities that our culture now selects for and we are left in this place where perhaps what lies behind that door may start knocking. This place where perhaps you are in a moment and you find it a bit uncomfortable to be still, and that is because its frightening to start to look, let alone enter that place and address what is going on behind the scenes. It’s because of that reason that we can no longer sense what our ancestors were able to feel and sense. That is now a rather lost world, a figment of the imagination, this grey area of reality that we try to touch with physics or even mindfulness, but it still remains this blind spot that the mind can not see or fathom because it is using the wrong tools to discover what is really there hidden in the moment. 

We all yearn for life, for greater possibility, but as we peer out at the world, at a tree, at the earth using only our minds, it’s a tough place to look from, let alone to see ourselves from, when the door that protects us from who we truly are within remains shut. Well, unfortunately with that doorway shut, our perspective and relationship with the natural world remains limited. It remains this thing that only 'special people' are able to do, without recognition that we can too if we find the courage to step inside and deal with the alarm system that is going off. That alarm system is the byproduct of 1000s of years of evolution, and now of a culture that can barely see beyond the nose on its mind. Why? Because processing reality from the mind is all we know. Low and behold, the racing mind is only the symptom of the problem, this reflection of a greater play we are all participants in as we uphold this way of life that predominantly makes us unhappy.

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The solution lies in the stillness of the moment, but in a way that extends beyond just observing the mind, or even the physical body. It requires us to bypass that blind spot or doorway that we keep shut, the doorway that leads us deeper into the moment and our true nature, as that has an experience like no other hidden inside of it, an experience that bridges the gaps of the unknown, an experience that can calm any racing mind. The present moment holds an eternal bridge to our relationship with what lies hidden inside of ourselves, a tree, a river or landscape. A place that speaks its own language perhaps similar to the inspiration that only rarely trickles through. The possibility is there beyond the mind, to begin to step inside that doorway so we can start to face the blind spot within, as there’s a greater story that lives within each of us that we have been predominantly unaware of, one that lives in the recesses of the subconscious, a place with a store house of information that reflects a greater journey yet to unfold.