We really have to determine to recognize and open to that which is emotionally challenging, that which is very powerful, overwhelming, frightening or threatening. Yet through the confidence of awareness, we begin to observe how these difficult situations affect the mind, the heart. What is the feeling? It’s not right or wrong. A feeling is what it is, and only we can know it. If we trust our awareness, we know it’s like this. We don’t need to have a word for it or define it in any way, because it is what it is. This is not cultural conditioning or the ego. It is direct knowing.
Ajahn Sumedho
A Zen Master once said simply, “We are saved such as we are”. Mindfulness has been such a blessed relief because it has given me a way to hold everything in my life compassionately, just as it is. Over years of practice, almost invisibly, mindfulness has been slowly stitching the old wound of feeling not enough…. As we can bow to the wounds in ourselves and the wounds in others the wounds begin, in their own time, with grace to close. The great way is not difficult if we don’t pick and choose.
