Further on the Path

In my previous writings I mentioned various ways in which we may wander off the path. To be more complete I should have also mentioned that any distractedness of attention may be a cause for us to loose the path. And, our wanderings off the path depend upon how long the distraction lasts. Thus it might be a helpful exercise to investigate the particular kinds of distractions which we are prone to. Of course, these may also change over time.
We all know of the 'telling yourself a story' distraction, the 're-writing the past' distraction, the 'reviewing the to-do list' distraction and especially the sensory distraction. A few weeks ago when I was going for alms in the village next to the Mekong River, as I crossed the upper plateau a spectacular sunrise unfolded with orange and pink clouds filling the morning sky. It was a scene hard to ignore, however, I was just navigating a new path across a very uneven, rocky landscape which required some careful and focused attention and thus could only glance momentarily at the sky. It was quite clear, however, just how absorbing each of the two scenes could be.
There is also what I would call 'dhamma distraction'. On one section of easy path I was reflecting upon 'appropriate attention (yoniso manasikara)' when I wandered off track! Thus thinking about dhamma (too much) rather than practicing it can be a distraction.
How about you? What are your usual distractions? Rather than ignore them and go back to the breath or, worse case scenario, react negatively to them, perhaps it may be useful to investigate them further. For example, are we constantly reviewing some incident from the past? Maybe there is some unresolved issue there which needs attending to. Especially useful can be looking at the 'bigger picture' of what is causing this distraction, what is triggering it and what is prolonging it, with whole body-mind awareness. All things arise from a cause.
 

Something else I have noticed is the effects of familiarity or habit. Having now been over the same path many times in a variety of weather conditions, I am becoming increasingly familiar with it. One result is that I don't need to pay as much attention to it as when I was new to the path, except when the path is particularly challenging. And then the rest of the mental energy not used up by attention goes into mental dialogue! Thus there is more internal activity with less external attention. This is one reason why, at least on the return trip in daylight, I usually try to take a different route. Partly this is to develop more attentiveness to the new  landscape but also it does sometimes bring up new perspectives from seeing from a different angle.
On the positive side I notice that with increased familiarity with the path I am feeling much more relaxed on my journeys. Even when I had to make the trek through the worst weather so far -- steady rain and gusting winds -- I was not at all tense, except as I approached the bridge which could have been submerged by the heavy run-off. Fortunately, although the flood was roaring through the gorge with flickering tongues of white water, surging over larger rocks and splashing against the rock walls, it was still  about one meter below the bridge.
On the further side of familiarity is over-confidence. One morning I was crossing a section of upper plateau which has many small gullies and depressions. Since it had rained in the night these were full of water. So to keep from splashing through them too much I decided to follow some higher ground veering off to the left of the path. However, after a few minutes I realized that I had lost sight of the path marker stones. Since I thought I knew where I was, it occurred to me to just continue in this direction and eventually meet the path to the Mushroom Rock which I could follow back to the junction with the main path. In another few minutes I noticed that the ground was sloping increasingly downhill to the right -- not a good sign! Stopping to re-orientate, I suddenly realized that I was now on the right side of the path and not the left side as I thought. This was not a big danger at this point, however, further along where the path enters 'The Labyrinth' winding around massive sandstone blocks, three over-confident steps in the wrong direction can lead over a 4 meter drop.