What [the Buddha] saw was that life is the permanent experience of suffering. This suffering is primarily occasioned by the ego’s desire to control – to control the environment, to control others, to control in proportion to our losses. The only path through and beyond this suffering, according to the Buddha, is the relinquishment of the desire to control, to let be, to go with the wisdom implicit in the transience of nature. This release is the proper cure for neurosis, for then one is not split off from nature, including ourselves, who are a part of nature. Such a relinquishment does not render one a slave to loss, but rather a participant in the act of letting go. Only letting go can bring peace and serenity […] None of us will likely attain Buddhahood, but we need not be eternal victims either.
James Hollis, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places
The multiplication of our society’s demons has been accompanied by a ratcheting up of the sources and volume of its background noise. The chatter and diversions of our lives (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, texts . . .) serve to keep the demons at bay, even as we are creating demons faster than we can create noise to drown them out: environmental devastation, global warming, the growing gap between the rich and the poor, uncontrolled population growth, unlimited consumption held up by international media and most of our leaders as the glittering purpose of life. The appropriate response is not more noise. The appropriate response is more silence. To choose to be alone is to bait the trap, to create a space the demons cannot resist entering. And that’s the good news; the demons that enter can be named, written about, and tamed through the miracle of the healing word, the miracle of art, the miracle of silence
More wise words from the Thai Forest tradition for when times are uncertain
Mindfulbalance 