December 11, 2000
Practice Loving-kindness Towards Yourself
From When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron Read more about Pema (one of the first American Buddhist nuns).
"Our personal demons come in many guises. We experience them as shame, as jealousy, as abandonment, as rage. They are anything that makes us so uncomfortable that we continually run away.
"We do the big escape: we act out, say something, slam a door, hit someone, or throw a pot as a way of not facing what's happening in our hearts. Or we shove the feelings under and somehow deaden the pain. We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds.
"All over the world, people are so caught in running that they forget to take advantage of the beauty around them. We become so accustomed to speeding ahead that we rob ourselves of joy."
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"The way to dissolve our resistance to life is to meet it face to face.
- "When we feel resentment because the room is too hot, we could meet the heat and feel its fieriness and its heaviness.
- When we feel resentment because the room is too cold, we could meet the cold and feel its iciness and its bite.
- When we want to complain about the rain, we could feel its wetness instead.
- When we worry because the wind is shaking our windows, we could meet the wind and hear its sound."
"Cutting our expectations for a cure is a gift we can give ourselves. There is no cure for hot and cold. They will go on forever. After we have died, the ebb and flow will still continue. Like the tides of the sea, like day and night—this is the nature of things. Being able to appreciate, being able to look closely, being able to open our minds—this is the core of maitri.
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"Practicing loving-kindness toward ourselves seems as good a way as any to start illuminating the darkness of difficult times."
m.