One minor additional thought about this: "the burnout and stress has returned and I've lost a lot of the benefit I found at the meditation center. I'm already planning to go back to try to refind it [...]"
For a long time my model was similar, that this sort of change is something I could lose and find. I was excited to find it, sad to lose it. When I had it, I expected to keep on having it, and was surprised when it was gone. But it doesn't behave like an object.
A more useful model to me is one of homeostasis and calibration. When I end up in a different equilibrium than the one I prefer, I think of myself as also having some sensor (or perhaps sensor weighting) out of calibration.
For example, relating to stress and burnout, I was poor at noticing the subtle bodily sensations that occur early on in that cycle. When my body offered me alarms, I had a tendency to hit snooze, treating the alerts as unimportant. And I was over-sensitive to other people's desires and my (generally good) desire to do things "right", by which I mean in accordance with readings from other sensors.
Now I don't think I'll ever have peace, as if it were an object. But I do think I can create peace, that I can sustain peace. For me, though, that requires careful attention to keeping those sensors well-calibrated and respecting not just the big red warning lights, but the small yellow ones.
That's an interesting change of perspective and one I'll keep in mind. It fits in with the teachings of my course, as well, as we were told that we don't crave or have aversion to an object, we crave or have aversion to the sensations in the body caused by our perceptions of that object. The key, as you've pointed out, is to learn to recognize and objectively view those sensations in the body and react to them consciously rather than subconsciously.
I also wonder, based on the training, whether those sensations are signs of burnout or whether the reactions to those sensations are actually what's causing the problem. Perhaps by noticing those sensations and teaching the body to react with equanimity I'd find the same effect that happens with other sensations of aversion. I've experienced the power of that equanimous reaction with something as simple as physical pain, which became a shadow of itself. I'm curious whether burnout is similarly inflated in severity by the mind's reaction to it.
One minor additional thought about this: "the burnout and stress has returned and I've lost a lot of the benefit I found at the meditation center. I'm already planning to go back to try to refind it [...]"
For a long time my model was similar, that this sort of change is something I could lose and find. I was excited to find it, sad to lose it. When I had it, I expected to keep on having it, and was surprised when it was gone. But it doesn't behave like an object.
A more useful model to me is one of homeostasis and calibration. When I end up in a different equilibrium than the one I prefer, I think of myself as also having some sensor (or perhaps sensor weighting) out of calibration.
For example, relating to stress and burnout, I was poor at noticing the subtle bodily sensations that occur early on in that cycle. When my body offered me alarms, I had a tendency to hit snooze, treating the alerts as unimportant. And I was over-sensitive to other people's desires and my (generally good) desire to do things "right", by which I mean in accordance with readings from other sensors.
Now I don't think I'll ever have peace, as if it were an object. But I do think I can create peace, that I can sustain peace. For me, though, that requires careful attention to keeping those sensors well-calibrated and respecting not just the big red warning lights, but the small yellow ones.