We have a choice. We can spend our whole life suffering because we can’t relax with how things really are, or we can relax and embrace the open-endedness of the human situation, which is fresh, unfixated, and unbiased.
Pema Chödron,
When I was a boy, I loved Westerns. Actually, I still do. The marshal who goes begging for help but when everyone turns him down nevertheless faces the group of 12 hired guns at high noon. Suffering and heroism somehow appealed to my slightly depressed European soul.
Little changed at graduate school. I loved walking home at 4 am with my completed research paper in hand; same later at work when it was my job to take on bets on markets, occasionally disagreeing with nearly everyone; testing again and again who might have more staying power to take the pain.
Enough of this though! Don’t believe the siren voices that suffering or heroism gets you anywhere in the spiritual ‘quest’. The very voice that loves the word quest is the very institution you want to watch out for. It’s ok to have pain bodies, we all them. Ride them out, cry or dance them away, but then move on.
Don’t fall in love with the image of the repenting sufferer. It’s the ego at work. Freedom is here and now. Pain is part of the process but suffering is optional. Do you want to know what my personal secret is? My music collection! I dance the night away when the pain body acts up and am ready for a brand-new day!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment