Look. . .
The majority of people in our world are living with issues large and small, physical and mental, or as The Buddha Pointed out – suffering.
Take a breath and think about that for a moment. Let yourself sit with the awareness of the collective pain we are in. Let it sober you and also open your heart. We can heal by understanding, with compassion, the story we are a part of.
Know Your Story – You have the remarkable capacity to investigate your own story with curiosity and learn how it fits into the web of living stories around you. It may be that your life pushes you to ask yourself difficult questions. It may be that the pain of living outside of your own values is uncomfortable enough that you are driven to investigate the story you are abiding by that isn’t your own. But it may be that you are comfortable enough, but don’t feel alive. This state is difficult to wake up from, so you have to harness your power of decision.
Emotions can be sticky – Emotions are the glue that holds a story in place. In order to unstick a story, you have to be curious about the emotions that are holding it in place. To unstick a story, you essentially have to simultaneously observe and feel the emotions that are attached to the story. In other words, you have to both tell the story honestly while also feeling the story. This will feel awkward at first. Let the awkwardness lead.
The story is you – Creating a world that is actively whole requires our full commitment to our own wholeness. The tendency, individually and culturally, is to want to erase the parts of our story we don’t like. The good and difficult news is that we need our whole story in order to be whole. What this means is that we have to first accept as truth that we need all the parts of ourselves. We’ll probably want to run away or turn our noses up at this. This is part of our story too.
I’ll leave you with these wise words from Pema Chodron – The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”
Peace and Love, Jim
#look #thedailybuddha
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