 Extending loving kindness to ourselves creates a fierce fire. As we open to our shadow aspects, the broken, wounded and inferior parts, we may experience shame and feel diminished. Yet, it is precisely these forgotten aspects of ourselves that cry out for our love so that we can be healed and whole.
 The Buddha taught that our thoughts manifest as words, and they in turn, manifest as behaviors, which develop into habits, and habits eventually harden into character or personality. We might add that character is 'destiny' in that the compelling power of our habitual patterns shape our lives in conformity with who we take ourselves to be.
Every culture through which Buddhism radiated its wisdom shaped the enlightened one's message to the mentality of its populace, and by doing so, offered novel and fresh opportunities for Buddha dharma to shine through. In the present cross fertilization of East and West, contemporary Western culture and the ancient tradition of Buddhism are shining a light on each other's blind spot. Something very unique in the history of spirituality is being born.
 There is a dark side of the mind that many spiritual practitioners unwittingly avoid. We could meditate for many years and still be plagued by agonizing emotional patterns, dysfunctional behaviors, and addictions of all stripes and colors. Meditation or prayer doesn’t always shine a light into these areas because our shadows are heavily defended.
 Meditation suggests that it is refreshing to meet the nakedness of situations with your own nakedness, here and now. Outside of nowness we fail to genuinely appreciate our lives because we are struggling to survive in time, projecting ourselves into the future or attempting to resolve the past.
 We entered the world with a sense of the miraculous and with openness to raw experience. But by the time we leave childhood, we were taught to suppress the ordinary miracle of being. The problem is that the world is no longer enchanted for us as when we were children and ordinary things pulsated with life. The sense of the sacred in everyday life has mostly been lost. Yet, our youthful wish for the superlative does not vanish.
 Like faithful dogs, we have been chasing “sticks” forever. Our mind throws out a thought and we go after it. The mind throws a memory, an image, a desire, and we eagerly chase it. Even when our mind recycles terribly painful thoughts and images, we chase them as well, re-experiencing old events with renewed anguish.
 This was an article published in Levenkunst journal which is no longer supporting its online articles on my website server.
In truth, moment by moment, we are confronted with the unknown. None of us knows what the next moment will bring. According to Buddhist psychology, with the arising of each moment we find ourselves momentarily uncertain and apprehensive, but these gaps are beneath our radar. Ego deflects attention away from this gap of uncertainty and ambiguity by provoking us to make a familiar gesture. |
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