I don't like buses. I prefer trains. If I have to wait at a bus stop I feel anxious. I worry the bus might not come, or might not stop for me. Then sitting on the bus I feel the bus is likely to not reach its destination. Even though it is possible both buses and trains can equally have problems, I tend to see trains as much less likely to be a problem. I have this strange preference which I don't verbalise or examine. The thought just arises as I am waiting at the bus stop. I might be happy or unhappy to simply have this difference of opinion, or preference for transport. When it comes down to it prefer my own car, which offers flexibility and freedom. Still, to my mind, there is a difference and I wonder if an understanding makes any difference to, changes, my concerns for travel. So if I look at the actual difference between the bus and the train I realise the main difference is that the train has a fixed track. The bus is free to take a wrong turn, to be affected by other vehicles, and to have to wait in traffic. The trains choices are limited to travel where the track goes.

A track is a line which is set to fixed points. When I look more closely I see my preference is because technically the train seems more certain, due to the set mechanical arrangement. I feel more secure. But this is a very subtle awareness about the different mechanisms of the travel options. It's not something I am immediately conscious of, and it could quite as easily remain an opinion or preference. Something to remark, to chat about. Something that sits on my mind as an idea, and take to just be one such opinion or preference that people have, but where I have no understanding of cause. Why did I examine this? Was it an interest in the difference? is the difference in the bus compared to the train? Is the difference in the actuality of each as a matter of fact? Isn't it interesting that I did look further than just opinion? How did I do this? Why did I do this? What is the point of it? Does it change anything?

When it all gets too much.

Do you know that feeling of being run down, having no energy. That sense of a malaise. You don't want to think too much. This is called depression. Then there is that feeling of pent up energy, where you want to assert yourself, and feel in charge. You are confronting and argue a lot, quickly losing your temper, or being angry. This is called aggression. You know, depression and aggression have the same cause. You are acting the same but in depression you suppress, and in aggression, you express. The cause is conflict. Your passive reaction to conflict is depression, and your active reaction is aggression. The conflict which is the same whether you are passive or active lies deeper within yourself.

To look for external reasons or to consider various theories you would be distracted and not be looking at this inner cause. So we are not looking for an explanation or analysing knowledge but actually, ourselves, watching the thinking process, our state of mind, and observing. So we see whether depressed or aggressive, there is a inner sense of agitation, unease and tension. Usually we can ignore this and occupy ourselves in chores, work, study, sport, hobbies, reading, watching TV. But when in some extra stress the underlying tension erupts into something stronger it dominates, takes over our life. So what is the cause of that deeper inner conflict, which is also the cause of our external conflict?

I, is the fragment.

Sitting outside, I can see the light, be alive to the subtlety of nature. Listen, watch, and feel the deep envelopment of the earth. I see the wonder and beauty of life. There is a timelessness, spaciousness. I can have that sense of the unknown, just being, without plans, expectations, preconceptions. It is a different reality, awareness, to that which I am in a day to day world. Still there is the inconclusive nature of my experience. I have a sense of the unfinished, unplaced, wanting. The mind, my self, is present. There is still that self consciousness.

When I go to school, to work, shopping, driving, I enter a civic world of self-containment, artifice, and indifference. It is not an impossible situation, just very different, and somewhat incompatible with me. So there is a confrontment, a clash, stress and anxiety. It is not me alone, ill adjusted to the world, but universally me, the self itself, that is the cause of this. So it's not that the beauty, naturalness, of the world is unattainable, but that the residual mind refers to the artificial world, to what it knows, to affect the human being, in their consciousness about life, reality, and everything. In fact this center of perception, the thinking mind, is an internalised construct of humans, not an essentially living thing, and is the root of our condition.
We might conclude that means we are to dispose of this some way, to alleviate our worries, solve the problem. So we return to this self consciousness as part of our understanding about what is happening, what to do, how to act, and how to remedy our problems. This thinking mind, bound by time and the known, is not in touch with the living present. It is this separation from living, which produces our suffering. Watching all of this confusion and complexity, listening to the inner voice, completely attentive, there is the confrontation of the fact, and the mind is no longer fragmented.

Let's not conceptualise what we are doing. If I have something to say, I just say it, don't I. Most of it, most of the time, is standard automatic responses. What is called communication. Communication is just one person saying something and the other responding, vis a vis. Is commonality, agreement, or understanding built in, guaranteed, except in a machine. It takes place and then we can put it to the test of normal, unexpected, surprising, interesting, boring, insane. Not that I am suggesting that, but it is what happens. Why do we so sternly insist on rules of conversation, communication, understanding and so on? What is happening when I compare my thoughts, my expectations, to anothers? I am idealising. To correct, prohibit or manage that is further idealising. So can we talk without ideals? I don't think that comes very easily.We can carefully negate the thoughts and images we hold by taking note of them. This is not making formulae, prescriptions, or having an expectation, for the procedures or outcomes. It is freely talking and noting what is arising in the mind. Then I am learning.