I.69 — The River in the Pocket

There is a thing in your pocket that will carry your attention away whenever you let it, and it is built to be let.

This is not a chapter against the thing. It is useful, and no teaching that pretends otherwise deserves attention. It is a chapter about the hand. Notice what the hand does at the first empty moment — it reaches, before there is any wanting to reach, and the reaching has been trained into it by something that profits from the reaching.

That is a grip you did not choose, and it can be seen like any other. Watch the reach. Feel it start in the hand before the mind has decided anything. Then, once, let the reach happen and do not complete it. Leave the hand where it is. Notice what the empty moment contains when it is not immediately filled.

The river is not the enemy. The river is a river. What the practice asks is only that you know when you are being carried and that you keep the ability to step out of the current onto the bank, where the day is, and where the people are.