awareness, not judging.... just aware of... what IS

For the first time  I see what they mean by 'observe, don't judge'. I heard all that so many many times.

       But the reality is: Usually I don't want to observe myself, or be too aware because I will see things I don't like. "not like" =equals= 'judge' as 'bad', or 'not nice', 'undesireable', 'not good enough' etc... . the logical next step is to change those things.
        HOw ? by trying not to do them, not to be them. this usually just leads to symptoms suppression and not any real change. After a while the effort of suppressing symptoms is too hard. I give up, and go into normal, unaware mode again.
        Why not play a 'game' for a week ? The game is: I promise myself to make NO effort whatsoever to change whatever I see in myself. In fact the games is now reversed: I'm NOT allowed to try and change anything, just 'see' it. That is all, only see it.
No effort to 'improve', to 'fix' to 'change' to 'be good' is allowed in this new game.
Anyone who has done meditation, will recognize this is a classic technique. For some reason it never hit home so clearly before.
Ok lets see how I go for the next 7 days. An experiment.

- walking around in Myanmar, was a different way of being. Not better or worse, - different.
It FEELS different, though it is hard to say in what way.  to illustrate: if someone steps in front of me, if a car squeezes into my path, or I get splashed with sludge from the street, that's ok, I just move around it, smile and get on with things. I genuinely don't feel annoyed, I don't even have to stop any annoyance. That's how it is. In a car, in a taxi the same applies.
        Back in Melbourne, or even in Singapore, people brush me carelessly, step into my path, I feel irritated.
I feel I have a right to move along in my path and others need to keep out of it. Evening today as I slowly ride my bike on the footpath slowly, a lady waves and stand in front of me, then discharges her store of frustration on me for that. Footpath rage. We call each other names, I move on, the atmosphere and mood of Myanmar still protects me and it does not penetrate deeply. 
       I'm sure such things exist everywhere, it is simply more or less visible, or hidden in different places. On the way to the Hotel in Yangon, I witnessed how one driver got out of a car and opened the door of another car, to hit the driver. Never ever seen this before. Road rage.
      I just read an article where an Indian lady gripes about her own country, a rather rude experience at Delhi airport her  story here. 
       As a child in Germany I used to observe adults, and how they related to us kids. I saw how some of the older adults would sit and lie in wait for someone to give them a legitimate reason to discharge themselves. The lawn of the high rise flats where we lived were no-walking zones. Any adult who wanted to vent some anger simply had to wait for a kid to come along and walk on the grass and then they discharged themselves, with 'legitimate reason'.
       It was easy to see they didn't care about the grass, they wanted an officially acceptable reason to be 'in the right' and then they'd pack in all the frustration inside themselves and fire off a salvo. They just needed an excuse. But firing off at someone at random would be too crazy, so they waited, to see someone break some rule. Then they'd fire off. Kind of like psychic landmines. I like the modern American term "pushing some one's buttons". Very apt.
       Us, kids of the blocThis was an excerpt of a post I wrote earlier http://heikorudolph.blogspot.com/2009/07/transition-thoughts-lasttravel-email.htmlk, treated it as a kind of game, we'd bait the adults and set them off, like the challenge of setting off a mousetrap without getting your fingers caught. In my mind it was understood, that these were our respective job descriptions. Oldies just did that, they grumbled and bitched, and put down the 'decadent' Youngies. And Youngies had to provoke them, they wouldn't be normal and healthy if they just said 'yes, Amen, of course, whatever you say I will do' what kind of kids would they be who did that ? Not normal ones.
        So if hair was usually short, then the young ones had to wear it long. Anything to set the adults off. Unpierced skin ? Pierce it. No tattoo is normal - Young ones->Tattoo it. etc... But it was all cosmetic in the end. The youngies turned into grumpy Oldies and so it contiuned.
        Yep, I've noticed grumpiness zones in myself too, of course. Some of my friends know exactly what & where they are too :-) somedays I feel like a regular hairball mine, touch any hair and off it goes.  

- Ah those grumpyness zones, those buttons... hm....

This was an excerpt of a post I wrote earlier http://heikorudolph.blogspot.com/2009/07/transition-thoughts-lasttravel-email.html