Conflict

The machine will always be in conflict with something. It worries. It agonizes. It schemes and plans. The machine may have a problem with the way a colleague looks at them, with the color of a neighbor's dress, with sideburns and taxes and that sibling that borrows money and never pays it back.
These problems are the problems of the machine, not problems of the being. Most importantly, they are not a conflict between the being and the machine. The being simply doesn’t put up a fight. The machine on the other hand is a bloodthirsty pit bull that will bite and its jaw will lock and it will shake and shake and shake the life out of anything. When confronted with conflict with the being, the machine latches on to a machine conflict and goes berserk.
For example your machine might want an ice cream cone when you are trying to do your daily meditation. But your machine wants an ice cream cone, but your teacher has recommended this daily meditation, but your machine wants an ice cream cone and how are you going to reach enlightenment or whatever if you have no freedom to make any choices and everything is all about routine?
Things are getting dogmatic and that asshole prefers his female students and gives them all of his attention and all he is doing is taking advantage of them and you really should tell him that you’re on to him and look for another teacher and there is a new yoga studio on main street, maybe you should stop there and see what kind of workshops they are offering and find out how they view free will and (by the way, while we’re down there we will get an ice cream cone from the place next door, but just because it’s on the way and we really need to show this asshole that we don’t need him, we can find enlightenment with a just teacher who will distribute their attentions evenly over their students regardless of gender, and then, or maybe just before then, get an ice cream cone.)
The moment it feels as if awakening is imminent, the machine lunges for something, anything to hold onto. A moment of awakening cannot occur simultaneously with a moment of identification, so if your machine can get a hold of something and start shaking it to death it can prevent awakening.
You might be painting a picture using careful attention, your mind remarkably still. Something unusual is starting to happen, you feel tingly and then you remember that your roommate will be home soon and she will take a shower and get water all over the floor and leave it there where you will step in the puddles of water, spoiling your socks the next time you want to blow your nose or urinate. Then you’ll be sitting there with no toilet paper, because she never puts a new roll on and her greasy hair sticks to the shower walls and your boyfriend was looking at her tits the other day because she was wearing that smutty shirt and she has to sleep with every man in the universe, and what you should do is stop painting and turn on the shower and let all the hot water run out so that when she gets in there will be none left for her, see how she likes a big fat dose of inconsideration. And you might run the water or you might crawl into bed and cry realizing that your relationship with boyfriend is doomed if he can be tantalized by the tasteless flaunting of bosoms. In fact, if he can like her at all, what does that say about you? Are you also a tawdry slut? Boo, hoo, boo, hoo. The painting lies unfinished, the being is completely silenced, the machine is thrashing.
Identification with the machine is the act of allowing one's attention to flow into the opinions, positions, and problems of the machine. Inversely, awakening is the act of allowing the attention to flow elsewhere, into the being, the most essential self. Any form of identification is counterproductive to work towards awakening. It doesn’t have to feel miserable to qualify as identification. Often times it feels ooooh too good.
If while you are conducting your morning meditation you suddenly realize fully and completely that you have the power to manipulate reality and can fly so you go soaring around the town feeling gleeful and transforming parking tickets into lollipops with the wave of a hand, and with a wink of the eye you get beautiful women to nurse you and you feel so wonderful laying in her lap on the park bench drinking Cristal from her swollen breast, then you are still identified. You’re just an identified psychic super mutant. If, on the other hand, while you are conducting your morning meditation you suddenly realize fully and completely that you have the power to manipulate reality and you remain seated and direct your attention inward upon your being, remembering your eternal self, that would be a moment of awakening.
The machine wants to solve things, it wants to do things, have things, to be things. The being is agenda-less. The machine is an inversion of this agenda-less-ness. It is a reaction to agenda-less-ness. Your existence in this world is a reflex against being. A reflex. An unintentional response.
You as a machine are just doing what you do, which is avoid Being. If you wish to work towards awakening you will have to learn to control this reflexive manifestation. To gain control of it you will have to distance yourself from it, find ways around it.
The best way to stop gagging is not to grab hold of your throat and squeeze or think loudly, “STOP GAGGING!” or wish obsessively that the horrible taste or smell or object lodged in your throat that catalyzed the gagging will cease to be.
The best way to stop gagging is to relax.
RELAX.
Don’t try to create relaxing conditions. Relax where you are, with what you are. Stop rejecting and allow. Don’t spit, swallow.