cattasalla | sadness as resistance from the defilements (Reply)

Every morning I wake up nice and early. I do my morning stretches, do my chanting and pūjā, do my morning meditation, then settle into Pāli lessons. Often, while doing my Pāli lessons, I'm struck with an overwhelming urge to give up on my morning exercises, and go back to bed. This almost always comes with a strong sense of sadness, akin to but not exactly like the depression episodes that used to be commonplace for me. (There is a clear difference between depression and simply having a bad mood or being sad, in my experience.) But I know if I stick with it and push through it, I'll be glad I did. I'll have accomplished something, maybe it's something minor, but I'll have made it through another morning of helpful activities.

All these things--stretches, meditation, learning and writing--are beneficial to me. They improve my mood, they deepen my practice, they are valuable accessories for my ongoing war on my defilements. So I'm inclined to think that this sadness and resistance is really a tactic from the defilements. They know they're facing eradication and doing everything they can to protect themselves. But I will not falter, and I will free myself of them!

Also, I'm increasingly regarding the word "defilement" as distasteful. The overall idea is that the clean, pure mind is dirtied, is sullied, by impurities. I don't particularly like the word "impurity", either, although it probably fits better. Working on coming up with better words...