The clogging burden of a guilty soul

"The clogging burden of a guilty soul." Bolingbroke in Richard II, act one, scene 3. He's condemning Mowbrey. In the spiritual life the most control you have is over your life. It's best to worry about yourself, though of course we always talk about others to figure ourselves out and how to relate to others.

I never really believed it when the fellow in Crimes and Mistermeaners skips away, as though he is untouched by his crimes.

You can justify your actions when you do something that is not so good, but in the end when you hurt people, there's a kind of mark (if you ever hope to be empathetic).

I always think about the gladdening. The gladdening happens when you're ethically clear and don't have negative stuff to "clog" and "burden".

In the Anapanasati sutta, mindfulness of respiration, after you've tuned into the breath and tuned into the body, you listen for the positive effects of the meditation. I think like metta, you can't force these things. Most in metta I look at things that might block the flow. Same thing with the gladdening. What is blocking the flow of gladdening.

I probably take refuge in confort, pleasure and convenience most, but I try to take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I've also been practicing some bardolatry.

Later in scene 2, act 2, Bushy says to the Queen, "lay aside life-harming heaviness."

Meditation can go wrong if you don't have the proper supports for the insight, "I had come to believe, simultaneously and sequentially, that I was: dead, alive, omniscient, immortal, non-existent, gay, straight, telepathic, a flower, a pulse of pure energy and a nuclear bomb."