Are you familiar with angling and angler terminology? There are a rod, reel and line. A weight holds a hook underwater. Let’s consider angling as a metaphor to illustrate unconscious behavior. A person that is fishing often uses various size sinkers. This causes the hook with bait to sink to a given water depth. This weight pulls the baited hook toward the bottom of a stream, pond or lake. The length of line released from the reel usually determines the depth the hook will sink. Equally, the size of the sinker plays a role in how quickly the weight and hook sink. Thus, the act of line casting and hook sinking is easy to visualize.
Therefore, please visualize the image of yourself in the act of fishing. The depth of the water and what is beneath the water is difficult to know with accuracy or assurance. Nevertheless, your desire is to catch fish. This wish encourages you to try various methods to get the fish you want. However, you don’t know what is under the water. This last sentence is also a metaphor for us to consider in relation to how we live. Most people live life basically with the same approach as trying to fish in water that doesn’t reveal its depth or content. Nevertheless, there is something in the depth of the water that everyone wants. But few people know how to harmonize the act of being in accordance with what is within the water’s depth.
Are You Fishing with a Heavy Sinker?
Let’s continue with the visualization of fishing for your desires. Everyone tells you to use a heavy sinker to get the fish at the bottom of the lake. And, everyone tells you to fish deep in the water to catch the biggest fish. Therefore, visualize a lake in a forest landscape. You repeatedly cast the sinker and bait into the water without a nibble from the fish. Sometime later you add more weight to the line so that the bait sinks faster to the bottom. Almost instantly you see that something is biting on the bait but your attempt to catch the fish is unsuccessful. Thus, you add another weight to the line and repeatedly cast the bait into the water’s depth. You continually feel a fish biting the bait. But the hook snags on something each time you attempt to pull the line and catch the fish.
Practice Fishing Without the Weight of Distractions
Your want and need to catch the fish or whatever bites on the bait in the water’s depth overwhelms you. But again, and again the hook snags on rocks, branches or obstacles at the bottom of the lake. Thus, frustration, confusion and determination overshadow the act of angling. Still, the biggest fish you can imagine is there in the depths waiting for you to catch it. At least, this is what the mind tells you. Meanwhile, there are many smaller fish jumping from beneath the water to catch bugs flying just above the surface. You could literally catch the jumping fish with your hands. Pure simplicity.
But, you unconsciously disregard the opportunities to catch these fish near the surface. Instead, you continue to cast the bait and sinker deep in the water’s shadowy depth. This becomes your sole occupation in life and nothing else is of any significance to you. Here, I will end this analogy with the hope that you will reflect on how you live life in any given moment. Most interpretations, distractions, and confusion result from self-inflected behavior patterns during the act of living.
