December 2
You are threefold: body, breath, mind. Two of these are entrusted to you so that you may care for them — only the third is, in the true sense, yours.
Meditations XII,3 (freely rendered)
Listening mode
You are threefold: body, breath, mind. Two of these are entrusted to you so that you may care for them — only the third is, in the true sense, yours.
You read a borrowed book differently from one of your own. You don't dog-ear the pages, you don't set your cup down beside it, and you give it back just as you received it. In a book of your own, on the other hand, you scrawl something crookedly in the margin or leave it lying out on the balcony. When something belongs to you, you often allow yourself a carelessness you would hardly permit yourself with something entrusted to you.
You mostly treat your body like property. You ignore its tiredness; after all, it's yours. Only when it refuses do you notice how little control you have over it. It lets itself be cared for, but hardly commanded.
With your judgement it is often the other way round. Here you really would be in control, and that is exactly what you hand over so easily. You adopt someone else's assessment so as not to upset anyone, or leave the decision to a passing mood. Later you can hardly remember when you gave it away.
Your judgement is the only thing nobody asks you to give back. That is why nobody notices when it's missing, sometimes not even you.
