She Moved Under, 48th Day of Autumn, 525 M.E. (Castor): My subconscious keeps all these little complaints and grievances in a box. Most of the grudges are real or imagined slights against my ego - some insult, some condescending words, someone overlooking something that I've said or done. They're all in there, in that little box. 

Sometimes, late at night, when I'm otherwise trying to sleep, my subconscious will open the box and find some minor offence to get upset over. It's really laughable how minor or long ago the offence was - it still has the power to upset me as I turn it over and roll it around in my mind. Someone turning their hear and pretending they didn't see me in the supermarket in the late 1990s, someone saying "excuse me" in a condescending tone, a work supervisor not recognizing the value of my contributions. 

Mind you, I'm better than that. I'm not the kind of person to hold a meaningless grudge or to get upset over some offhand remark. At least that's what I tell myself. At least that's my image of myself. But my subconscious knows better, and reaches into the box and holds up some relic, waving it around before me like a rattle in front of a baby, and I'm hooked. "I should have said . . .", "I bet they really meant . . .", etc.  

These thoughts even come up while sitting in zazen. Sitting quietly, following the breath, calming the mind, and then randomly remembering a woman at work who said she wouldn't go to lunch with me because she didn't want people to think she wasn't the kind of person who'd date someone like me (It wasn't a date, it was a lunch break during work! And what do you mean "people like me?").

Sitting in zazen, though, it's easier to remember that this is just the defense mechanism of my ego flaring up to distract me from my meditation. It's a reminder of why clinging to the ego-self is a problem. Sitting, I can laugh at myself more easily than I can when tossing and turning in bed, and drop the thought by counting my breath, or silently reciting some sutra. 

But they keep returning, although I've noticed that after a year of regular, structured sitting (90 minutes every other day), they've not completely stopped coming, but are now getting close to extinction. The subconscious mind is learning that it can't distract me as easily with the contents of that box as it once could and is running out of patience with that particular tactic. The part of my mind that doesn't want to be the person holding grudges is winning the long wrestling match with the part of my mind that uses those grudges to distract myself. Ultimately, my resolve to keep sitting is greater  than the mind's power to upset me.

There was once a monk who kept relics of the saints in a box. The abbot told him that adoration of relics was a useless practice and that he should get rid of the box. The monk protested, but when he opened the box he found a poisonous snake inside.