A similar idea to yesterday afternoon’s pos
t on how to work with emotions and not give them too much solidity or identify with them. Sometimes the best attitude we can have is one of patience, being able to sit with whatever arises knowing that it will pass and a new day, a new understanding will come:
Someone sits wakeful through the dark night, thinking of some way to find the day.
Though they do not know how to get there, still, in waiting for daylight, the day approaches.
Rumi
As long as we’re caught up in always looking for certainty and happiness, rather than honoring the taste and smell and quality of exactly what is happening, as long as we’re always running away from discomfort, we’re going to be caught in a cycle of unhappiness and disappointment, and we will feel weaker and weaker. This way of seeing helps us to develop inner strength. And what’s especially encouraging is the view that inner strength is available to us at just the moment when we think we’ve hit the bottom, when things are at their worst. Instead of asking ourselves, “How can I find security and happiness?” we could ask ourselves, “Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace — disappointment in all its many forms — and let it open me?” This is the trick.
Pema Chodron
In the deepest moments of insight we see that things change so quickly that we can’t hold onto anything, and eventually the mind lets go of clinging.
Letting go brings equanimity. The greater the letting go, the deeper the equanimity. In practice we work to expand the range of life experiences in which we are free.
U Pandita
In the attitude of acceptance we can allow ourselves to be receptive to life rather than try to control it, run away from, or resist it. This receptivity contrasts resistance. Culturally, we tend to be conditioned into resisting things. There is a fear of being open and receptive, as if by doing so we shall allow something to take us over. We feel we have to develop some kind of protection in order to keep ourselves from being annihilated or taken advantage of; it is a kind of paranoia of the mind.
Ajahn Sumedho, Liberating Emotions
The word “becoming” is an innocuous little term. It doesn’t really evoke much of an image or much feeling. But the reality is that it is because of the nature of becoming that we continually experience suffering. It is why we continually experience conflict. It is why we are continually dissatisfied. Becoming is why we continually opt to be scattered, confused and stupid rather than peaceful and wise….We need to able to let go of the fear of not being something, not getting what one wants, not being what one thinks one should be or would like to be or have to be, have to get, have to become. There’s a tremendous, almost primal fear, of actually being peaceful, of really letting go, of putting stuff down, of putting identity down, of putting the compulsions down….to paraphrase Sariputta, “Freedom from suffering is the cessation of becoming.”
Ajahn Passano, On Becomng and Stopping
Happiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Then suddenly you will come to know: meditation follows you. If you love the work that you are doing, if you love the way you are living, then you are meditative.
Osho, A Sudden clash of Thunder
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