Staying fluid 1: Fear and hurt mean we put labels on things

Every moment and every event of every man’s life on earth plants something in his soul. Thomas Merton

It is a good practice to keep the heart soft and the stories we tell ourselves fluid, but it is not always easy. We can get locked into the hurt of a certain moment and find it hard to move beyond that. It becomes attached to a particular story. Our practice encourages us to keep moving to the present, and not allow a past event limit how we enjoy life. Sometimes we will never get perfect explanations, or full understanding. We still have a choice: will we stay stuck in a moment we can’t get out of or accepting that it happened, open to the way the present moment actually is, as one full of new and future possibilities.

Someone is walking toward us — suddenly we freeze. Not only do we freeze ourselves, but we also freeze the space in which the person is walking toward us. We call him “friend” who is walking through this space or “enemy.” Thus the person is automatically walking through a frozen situation of fixed ideas — “this is that” or “this is not that.” This is what is called “wrong view.” It is a conceptualized view which is imperfect because we do not see the situation as it is.

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Staying fluid 1: The weather changes, so does life

Life’s energy is never static. It is as shifting, fluid, changing as the weather. How we relate to this dynamic flow of energy is important. We can learn to relax with it, recognizing it as our basic ground, as a natural part of life; Or the feeling of uncertainty, of nothing to hold on to, can cause us to panic, and instantly a chain reaction begins.

We panic, we get hooked, and then our habits take over and we think and act in a very predictable way. The source of our fear is the unfilfillable longing for a lasting certainty and security, for something solid to hold on to. Unconsciously we expect that if we could just get a better job, a better partner, a better something, then our lives would run smoothly. We get caught up in a fearful, narrow holding pattern of avoiding any difficulty and continually seeking comfort.

Pema Chodron, Taking the Leap