Nests, safety, and habits - Dahui's Shobogenzo Case 2 revisited

I've already made a thread about a bigger part of this passage here: https://old.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/134kp4g/dahuis_shobogenzo_sums_up_most_of_the_rzen/

But I wanted to talk about it some more.

Don’t keep on thinking about it dully; as soon as you esteem
something, it becomes a nest. This is what the ancients called
clothing sticking to the body, an affliction most difficult to cure.

Today I've been thinking about a habit of mine - I like to overthink things. You know, consider all eventualities, make sure I'm ready for everything that could possibly happen to me in every possible scenario.

I don't even have the usual caveats people usually posit as an issue for this. I've gotten very good at thinking things through. It used to be that reality would still often surprise me and my predictions would be off, but nowadays I can imagine up everything well enough that I'm usually prepared for every way things could go wrong, up, down, or sideways.

Thing is, that's a lot of effort, and I don't really gain anything out of it. It's putting things into a box, where they can be kept. I'm building a nest and I feel safe, but I also get exhausted.

Big life events sometimes get me out of this. Think divorce, a breakdown of relationships, or even a big bout of depression.

But I always decide to go back to the habit.

I wonder what other habits I have that I spend inordinate amounts of energy on.

Do you have any? What else do Zen Masters have to say about it?

Edit: After contemplating I've editet the post a bunch of times. This sentence

But I always decide to go back to the habit.

started out as something like

But I always fall back into the habit

Then went on to become

But I always let myself fall back into the habit

Then became

But I always go back to the habit

And finally ended up as

But I always decide to go back to the habit.

I guess those are some insights.

Submitted May 06, 2023 at 01:37PM by dota2nub https://ift.tt/yYK5a8f