The mind is made up of the same vast emptiness as everything. A real problem arises when the mind interprets the presence of thoughts and fears to mean something is wrong with us and the world. However, if they are seen to be thoughts and fears just passing through, we are unlikely to identify ourselves with them.
Seeing life to be only and exactly what it is in this moment, is a powerful state of realization. That is how our vast essence sees everything. The presence of thoughts and fears means only that are present. Period. There is nothing whose presence is an indication that we are not the vastness we seek.
Suffering is caused not by the presence or absence of certain circumstances, but by our interpretation of them.
“If you don’t have peace within yourself, it is very difficult to work for peace. (During the Vietnam War) our thinking was the other person is not our enemy. Our enemies are misunderstanding, discrimination, violence, hatred and anger. With that kind of insight we conducted the peace movement If you are filled with anger, you create more suffering for yourself then for the other person.
When you are inhabited by the energy of anger, you want to punish, you want to destroy. That is why those who our wise do not want to say anything or do anything while the anger is still in them So you try to bring peace into yourself first. When you are calm, when you are lucid, you will see that the other person is a victim of confusion, of hate, of violence transmitted by society, by parents, by friends, by in the environment. When you are able to see that, your anger is no longer there…” Tao & Zen. August 1, 2021 Thich Nhat Hanh.
How much more peaceful life is when seeing things “just as they are.” When I try to see it through past experiences or future expectations labeled “good” or “bad;” when indeed I don’t have the wisdom with which to judge, I can cause myself a lot of needless suffering and misinterpretation. Keeping it simple, staying in the moment, It is easier to move through life.
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Betty – Thanks for reminding me to be still. Namaste.
In Presence there is no right or wrong choice; there is wisdom in every moment. We just need to be still enough to “hear” it.
“There’s no wrong decisions. We can always turn deep doo-doo into manure, and grow something to chew on.”
? L.A. Golding, Lerkus: A Journey to End All Suffering
As an extension of my nights session I continue to find myself in that still space. Tension and suffering seem to only be tools for this awakening. How else would I pay attention to the part of me that is still hooked into a painful version of reality. We really are just a moment of stillness away.
A psychiatrist once explained to someone that their demented mother-in-law was not lying, that the mind “fills in the blanks.” He called this confabulation. It is my experience that when there is an unknown I fill in the blank with all the possibilities, which may or may not happen. When I fear the unknown, I fear the outcome. I can attach to these fears or I can open to the unknown, in which resides “the field of limitless possibilities.” Being in the moment we are connected to resources that we shut off when we are living in the future or even in the next moment. If there are challenges in this moment they are not punishments but learning experiences. I can cling to fear, or be present and recognize the powerful being that I am, that we all are…and proceed from there.
Mark Twain famously said, ‘I had a lot of trouble in my life . . . most of it never happened’. Thus demonstrating the difference between worries and presence. Namaste.