Showing posts with label self-love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-love. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Thursday, July 14, 2022
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
How to Be a Bodhisattva - Lion's Roar
How to Be a Bodhisattva - Lion's Roar
It may seem like an unattainable ideal, but you can start right now as a bodhisattva-in-training. All you need is the aspiration to put others first and some inspiration from helpful guides like the Buddhist teachers found here.
“Hands of Compassion” by Mayumi Oda.
Everyone Is Your Guest
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche on your life as a future bodhisattva
Many Mahayana scriptures speak of inviting all sentient beings as our guests. When we invite a guest, we have a sense of the importance of that relationship. Guests are usually fed specially cooked food and receive extra hospitality. The life of a bodhisattva is relating with all sentient beings as guests. The bodhisattva invites everyone as a guest, constantly offering a feast.
Inviting all sentient beings as our guests is the starting point of applying compassion in the Mahayana. By viewing sentient beings as guests, the bodhisattva has a constant sense of the impermanence of the relationship, because eventually all guests leave. So we view the time with our guests as precious. There is a sense of the preciousness and the impermanence of the relationship. Our guest may be our husband, our wife, or our child—everybody is the guest of everybody, constantly. On a day to day level, all relationships for a bodhisattva are based on relating with guests.
Just as fish cannot live without water, compassion cannot develop without egolessness.
Compassion is a combination of maitri, or loving-kindness, and generosity. It is a journey outward, a journey of communication. On one level, compassion is feeling friendly toward ourselves. On another level it is experiencing a sense of richness, that we can expand the warmth we feel toward ourselves to other sentient beings.
It is said in the scriptures that just as fish cannot live without water, compassion cannot develop without egolessness and without the experience of emptiness, or shunyata. It may seem that this view of compassion is somewhat abstract, but in fact it is the heart of the practice of meditation in action.
The presence of compassion is experienced as a sudden glimpse, a sense of clarity and warmth simultaneously. According to the scriptures, that glimpse, if you analyze it, takes one-sixtieth of a second. It is so fast and so sharp. The sharpness is the intelligence of the compassion. Compassion also means being open and communicative. It contains warmth.
So, first there is maitri, trusting in the heart.
Second, there is a gap in which you experience the openness of tathagatagarbha, or buddhanature.
Third, there is a sense of communication—having already woken up at that level, there is a sense of freedom to expand and to relate with your actions, whatever you are doing. That seems to be how to develop compassion.
6 Baby Steps to Kindness
The path of compassion, says Judy Lief, starts with stepping out of your usual storyline. Here are five ways to do it.
It is amazing how often we think we are out in the world interacting with and helping others, when actually we are simply acting out our preconceived internal storyline. Our vision is clouded and we can only take in what feeds into our plot line.
One way to soften this pattern is by exploring some basic steps that can lead us in the direction of kindness. Instead of trying to will ourselves to be kind—presto!—we can create an atmosphere congenial to the development of loving-kindness.
Here are five small steps to kindness you can practice. You can explore these steps singularly or in combination. The idea is that if you create the right atmosphere, compassion naturally arises. It is already present, just waiting for your invitation.
- Settle Down
There has to be a here to be a there, and a connection between the two. So the first step is to slow down and let your mind settle enough that you are able to drop from the heights of conceptuality back into your body, a simple form in space. Can you really feel present, in your body as it is, right where you are?
- Be in the Moment
Now that you are more solidly somewhere, you can let yourself be more clearly sometime. When your thoughts drift from the past or the future, from memories and regrets to plans and dreams, you can gently bring yourself back to the present moment.
- Drop Escape Routes
Stay put in this particular place and time, just the way it is.
- Pay Attention to Space
Notice the quality of space within you and around you. Pay attention to the boundaries of your physical body and the space in front, behind, and on each side of you. Also pay attention to the mental–emotional space that accommodates the comings and goings of sensations, thoughts, moods, and emotional upheavals. Whatever arises on an outer or inner level, notice the space in which both you and your perception rest.
- Share the Space
Explore what it is like to share this space with whoever is there with you. Notice the power of accommodation, acceptance, and nonjudging. When you sense the arising of territoriality and fear, accommodate that too in greater spaciousness.
- Alchemy
What ordinary people see as lead, alchemists see as gold in disguise. Like alchemists, we can learn to uncover the gold hidden within our human condition—no matter how conflicted and unpromising we humans often seem to be. Our dramas and fascinations, our obsessions, our loves gained and lost may captivate us, but they are fundamentally ephemeral. However, anything that awakens and touches our hearts even a little bit can open us to the possibility of something more. Within the fluctuating passions of the human realm, we can discover the unwavering force of selfless compassion and loving-kindness.
“Kanzeon & Dolphin” by Mayumi Oda.
You Deserve Compassion Too
Compassion makes no distinction between self and other, says Christina Feldman. Care for your own suffering in the same way you care for others’.
Some people, carrying long histories of a lack of self-worth or denial, find it difficult to extend compassion toward themselves. Aware of the vast suffering in the world, they may feel it is self-indulgent to care for their own aching body, broken heart, or confused mind. Yet this too is suffering, and genuine compassion makes no distinction between self and other.
The path of compassion is cultivated one step and one moment at a time.
The Buddha once said that you could search the whole world and not find anyone more deserving of your love and compassion than yourself. Yet too many people find themselves directing levels of harshness, demand, and judgment inward that they would never dream of directing toward another person, knowing the harm that would be incurred. They are willing to do to themselves what they would not do to others.
The path of compassion is altruistic but not idealistic. Walking this path we are not asked to lay down our life, find a solution for all of the struggles in this world, or immediately rescue all beings. The path of compassion is cultivated one step and one moment at a time. Each of those steps lessens mountains of sorrow in the world.
The Buddha’s Love
Thich Nhat Hanh describes how love for one person becomes love for all.
Question: More than anything else, we want to love and be loved. Why do we find it so difficult to love?
Thich Nhat Hanh: Love is the capacity to take care, to protect, to nourish. If you are not capable of generating that kind of energy toward yourself, it is very difficult to take care of another person. In the Buddhist teaching, it’s clear that to love oneself is the foundation of the love of other people. Love is a practice. Love is truly a practice.
Why don’t we love ourselves?
We may have a habit within ourselves of looking for happiness elsewhere than in the here and the now. We may lack the capacity to realize that happiness is possible in the here and now, that we already have enough conditions to be happy right now. To go home to the present moment, to take care of oneself, to get in touch with the wonders of life that are really available—that is already love. Love is to be kind to yourself, to be compassionate to yourself, to generate images of joy, and to look at everyone with eyes of equanimity and nondiscrimination.
When people love each other, the distinction, the limits, the frontier between them begins to dissolve, and they become one with the person they love.
As you progress on the path of insight into non-self, the happiness brought to you by love will increase. When people love each other, the distinction, the limits, the frontier between them begins to dissolve, and they become one with the person they love. There’s no longer any jealousy or anger, because if they are angry at the other person, they are angry at themselves. That is why non-self is not a theory, a doctrine, or an ideology, but a realization that can bring about a lot of happiness.
You have written about a woman you loved deeply a long time ago. At this point in your life, do you regret not being with her?
That love has never been lost. It has continued to grow. To love someone, if it is true love, is a very wonderful opportunity for you to love everyone. In the insight of non-self, you see that the object of your love is always there and the love continues to grow. Nothing is lost and you don’t regret anything, because if you have true love in you, then you and your true love are going in the same direction, and each day you are able to embrace, more and more.
So to love one person is a great opportunity for you to love many more. That nourishes you, that nourishes the other person, and finally your love will have no limit. That is the Buddha’s love.
“I Will Be With You” by Mayumi Oda.
Unbearable Compassion
For our compassion to be effective, says Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa, it must be as unbearable as the world’s suffering is.
Our compassion must have a broad focus, including not only ourselves and those close to us but all sentient beings. All beings want to be happy and free of suffering, yet most sentient beings experience only suffering and cannot obtain happiness. Just as we have a desire to clear away the suffering in our own experience and to enjoy happiness, we come to see through meditating on compassion that all other beings have this desire as well.
When we practice, we must bring our meditation on compassion to the deepest level possible. We must reflect on the intense suffering of sentient beings in all six realms of samsara. Reflecting on our connection to these beings, we must engender a compassion that cannot bear their suffering any longer.
To make our compassion strong, we need the path.
This great, unbearable compassion is extremely important. Without it, we might feel a compassionate sensation in our minds from time to time, but this will not bring forth the full power of compassion. But when we witness with unbearable compassion the suffering of sentient beings, we immediately seek out ways to free them from that suffering. We are unfazed by complications and doubts; our actions for the benefit of others are effortless and free from doubt.
To make our compassion strong, we need the path. We already have compassion, wisdom, and many other positive qualities, yet our mental afflictions are stronger than these most of the time. It is as if the afflictions have locked all of our positive qualities away in a box.
One day, when we open that box and all of our good qualities spring forth, we will not have to go looking for our compassion. We will discover that compassion is present in our minds spontaneously, and a wealth of excellent qualities will become available to us.
Toward a Culture of Love
Love is the ultimate transgression, bell hooks argues. Its transformative power can shatter the status quo.
To work for peace and justice we begin with the individual practice of love, because it is there that we can experience firsthand love’s transformative power. Attending to the damaging impact of abuse in many of our childhoods helps us cultivate the mind of love. Abuse is always about lovelessness, and if we grow into our adult years without knowing how to love, how then can we create social movements that will end domination, exploitation, and oppression?
To begin the practice of love we must slow down and be still enough to bear witness in the present moment. If we accept that love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust, we can then be guided by this understanding. We can use these skillful means as a map in our daily life to determine right action.
To be transformed by the practice of love is to be born again, to experience spiritual renewal.
When we cultivate the mind of love, we are, as Sharon Salzberg says, “cultivating the good,” and that means “recovering the incandescent power of love that is present as a potential in all of us” and using “the tools of spiritual practice to sustain our real, moment-to-moment experience of that vision.”
To be transformed by the practice of love is to be born again, to experience spiritual renewal. What I witness daily is the longing for that renewal and the fear that our lives will be changed utterly if we choose love. That fear paralyzes. It leaves us stuck in the place of suffering.
When we commit to love in our daily life, habits are shattered. Because we no longer are playing by the safe rules of the status quo, love moves us to a new ground of being. We are necessarily working to end domination. This movement is what most people fear. If we are to galvanize the collective longing for spiritual well-being that is found in the practice of love, we must be more willing to identify the forms that longing will take in daily life.
Folks need to know the ways we change and are changed when we love. It is only by bearing concrete witness to love’s transformative power in our daily lives that we can assure those who are fearful that commitment to love will be redemptive, a way to experience salvation.
ABOUT JUDY LIEF
Judy Lief is a Buddhist teacher and the editor of many books of teachings by the late Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. She is the author of Making Friends with Death. Her teachings and new podcast, “Dharma Glimpses,” are available at judylief.com.
Sunday, February 6, 2022
On love by Nisargadatta
“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.”
―
Sunday, January 9, 2022
Rilke on acceptance, courage, letting go,
Letter to a Young Poet
We have no reason to harbour any mistrust against our world,
for it is not against us.
If it has terrors, they are our terrors.
If it has abysses, these abysses belong to us.
If there are dangers, we must try to love them,
and only if we could arrange our lives,
in accordance with the principle that tells us
that we must always trust in the difficult,
then what now appears to us to be alien
will become our most intimate and trusted experience.
How could we forget those ancient myths
that stand at the beginning of all races –
the myths of dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses?
Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses
waiting for us to act, just once,
with beauty and courage.
Perhaps everything that frightens us is,
in its deepest essence,
something helpless that wants our love.
So you must not be frightened if a sadness rises before you
larger than any you’ve ever seen,
if an anxiety like light and cloud shadows
moves over your hands and everything that you do.
Life has not forgotten you.
It holds you in its hands and will not yet you fall.
Why do you want to shut out of your life
any uneasiness, any miseries, or any depressions?
For after all, you do not know what work these conditions are doing inside you.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Leonard Cohen - "love itself"
Song lyrics by Leonard Cohen
Love Itself
The light came through the window,
Straight from the sun above,
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of Love.
In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the Nameless makes
A Name for one like me.
I'll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door --
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.
All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.
I'll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door --
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.
Then I came back from where I'd been.
My room, it looked the same --
But there was nothing left between
The Nameless and the Name.
All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.
I'll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door --
Then Love itself,
Love Itself was gone.
Love Itself was gone.
Thursday, June 17, 2021
seeing an imperfect person perfectly
We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. ~ Sam Keen
(https://twitter.com/Zen_Moments/status/1405330596637859844?s=03)
(https://twitter.com/Zen_Moments/status/1405330596637859844?s=03)
Monday, June 7, 2021
Getting to Know Inner Critic - Jan Chosen Bays
Getting to Know Your Inner Critic
BY JAN CHOZEN BAYS| https://bit.ly/3x3phNL
Jan Chozen Bays explains how to recognize and tame the critical commentary we replay in our minds.
Image © Vivienne Flesher.
Once when the Buddha was injured by an enemy, he spent hours meditating on the physical sensations of pain, without giving in to mental or emotional distress. Finally he lay down to rest. Mara the Evil One appeared and berated him. “ Why are you lying down? Are you in a daze or drunk? Don’t you have any goals to accomplish? ” The Buddha recognized Mara and said, “I’m not drunk or in a daze. I’ve reached the goal and am free of sorrow. I lie down full of compassion for living beings.” Then Mara, sad and disappointed, disappeared.
In this story Mara is depicted as an external entity. However, I have found that the most insidious obstacle actually arises from within. It is called the Inner Critic. If left unrecognized and unchecked, it creates a pattern of negative inner comments that can undermine our wellbeing and destroy our creativity, attacking our work when we’ve written just a few sentences, sung just a few notes, or painted only few strokes. Even worse, it can destroy our spiritual practice.
The Inner Critic criticizes whatever is in front of it. For example, if you don’t go to a meditation retreat, it says, “You aren’t very serious about your practice.” If you do go to the retreat it says, “You wasted so much time daydreaming during that retreat. You should have stayed home.” A hallmark of the Inner Critic is that it often puts us in a double bind, damned if we practice and damned if we don’t.
Just as the Buddha recognized Mara, we need to recognize the Inner Critic not as the truth, but as a single voice among many.
How can we work with the Inner Critic? The story of the Buddha gives us some clues. Just as the Buddha recognized Mara, we need to recognize the Inner Critic not as the truth, but as a single voice among many. You can even give it a name. “Oh, hi there Mr. Negativity. What are you so worked up about now?”
For the Inner Critic does indeed get worked up. It arises in childhood, trying to keep us from getting into trouble. It reviews our mistakes endlessly, in an attempt to prevent future errors or failures. It believes that the best way to insure our happiness is to berate us about our short comings. It doesn’t realize that it is also stealing away our innate capacity for happiness. As we grow older, it can infiltrate our mind so thoroughly that we don’t realize that we have fallen into a pervasively negative pattern of thinking about ourselves. When this happens, people begin to think of themselves as “defective” or ‘broken.”
I point out to students that they would never rent and watch the same painful movie two hundred and fifty times. And yet they allow their mind to play painful episodes from the past over and over. “Remember when you made that stupid mistake? Let’s run that mind movie again, and again, and again.” We need to tell the inner critic that we aren’t stupid. We only need to review our past mistakes once or twice, then create a determination to change and move on.
It helps to get some perspective on the damage a strong Inner Critic can do. Imagine that you heard a mother in a supermarket saying out loud to her three year old child what your inner critic says to you. “You’re an idiot! I’ve told you a million times not to do that. You’re hopeless!” We would all recognize these statements as harmful, or even abusive. No one, a child, a pet, or a plant, can thrive under that pattern of negative attack. And yet we allow our inner critic to attack us in this way, repeatedly.
The Buddha was quite clear about not giving energy to afflictive thoughts. He divided all his thoughts into two classes, those that led to enlightenment and those that led away. He cultivated the former and put aside the latter. If you recognize the Inner Critic and stop feeding it mental energy, its power will weaken.
When we can hear what the Critic says and take away the anger, the sting, the invidious comparisons of self and other, then it is transformed into the voice of discriminating wisdom and determination.
How can we cultivate a voice to subdue the Inner Critic? Through metta, loving kindness practice. We can meditate as the Buddha did, full of compassion for living beings – including ourselves. We can breathe out the silent phrases, “May I be free from anxiety and fear. May I be at ease.” We can even direct these phrases toward the Inner Critic, because this is the very part of us that is chronically anxious and fearful. It is desperately afraid that we will make a mistake, lose our job, be unloved, become homeless, grow old, become ill and die—which of course, eventually, we will.
Indeed, there is often a kernel of truth in what the Inner Critic says. Yes, I was drowsy during that last meditation period. However that does not mean that I am bad, stupid or hopeless. It just means that I had a sleepy period. Now I will drop the past and do my best during the next period. When we can hear what the Critic says and take away the anger, the sting, the invidious comparisons of self and other, then it is transformed into the voice of discriminating wisdom and determination.
Ultimately the only sure cure for the Inner Critic is to practice. The Critic relies upon an idea of a self—a small self—that is imperfect and must be fixed. It feeds on comparing, on thoughts of past and future, of mistakes and anxieties. The Inner Critic has no traction in the present moment. When our minds become quiet, when we are resting in the this very moment, there is no past or future, there is no comparing. The small self expands to become a huge field of calm awareness in which sensations, thoughts, and voices come and go. Everything is just as it is, perfect in its own place, interconnected with every other piece of the Whole. Every being also is perfect as it is, including the temporary collection of energy we call our self.
Every morning at the monastery we remind ourselves of this truth as we chant, ‘Buddha Nature pervades the whole Universe, existing right here now.” In us, as us. Nothing is broken.
The inner critic - Christina Feldman
Silencing the Inner Critic
The nagging, negative voice of self-judgement, says Christina Feldman, is a powerful affliction best met with courage, kindness, and understanding.
“The Fight” by Helena Perez García.
Unruly beings are like space.
There’s not enough time to overcome them.
Overcoming these angry thoughts.
Is like defeating all of our enemies.
—Shantideva
The Buddha sat beneath the Bodhi tree on the eve of his enlightenment and was assailed by Mara, representing all of the afflictions we meet in the landscape of our minds: worry and restlessness, dullness and resistance, craving, aversion, and doubt. The one affliction that did not make an appearance in this story is the powerful voice of the inner critic—the inner judge that can torment us on a daily basis, undermining our well-being and distorting our relationship with life. The inner critic is the voice of shame, blame, belittlement, aversion, and contempt. To many of us, it is so familiar that it seems almost hardwired into our hearts.
Before exploring the nature of the judgmental mind, it is essential to mark the distinction between the voice of the inner critic and our capacity for discernment and discriminating wisdom. Discriminating wisdom is what brings us to our cushion to meditate and inspires us to act in ways that bring suffering and harm to an end. Discriminating wisdom is the source of every wise act and word. Discernment draws upon ethics, compassion, and wisdom and teaches us moment by moment to discover the Buddha in ourselves and in others.
The judging mind is optional; it can be understood and released.
The inner critic is a creature of a different nature. With the inner critic, we may still come to our cushion but we come accompanied by a story that tells us we are unworthy or inadequate. With the inner critic, we still act, speak, and make choices, yet moment by moment we feel endlessly criticized, compared, and belittled. The judgmental mind draws not upon all that is wise but upon Mara, the patterns of aversion, doubt, ill will, and fear. Rarely is the judgmental heart the source of wise action or speech, nor does it lead to the end of suffering. The judgmental mind is suffering and compounds suffering. It suffocates ethics, the guidelines of kindness and care, and it wounds our hearts and lives.
Discriminating wisdom is essential and must be cultivated. The judging mind is optional; it can be understood and released. Thomas Merton, the great Christian mystic described the essence of the spiritual path as a search for truth that springs from love. Beneath the Bodhi tree, Mara’s power over Siddhartha ended the moment he was able to look Mara in the eye and simply say, “I know you.” These few words were a reflection of a profound shift in Siddhartha’s heart: the shift from being intimidated and overpowered by Mara to having the courage to open a dialogue of understanding with Mara, and bringing intimidation to an end.
The judgmental mind that causes so much pain in our lives cannot be exempted from our practice. The judgmental mind needs to be met with the same courage and investigation we bring to any other afflictive emotion. The judgmental mind does not respond well to suppression, avoidance, or aversion. It needs kindness and understanding. The late Jiyu-Kennett Roshi, a Zen teacher, said the training of liberation begins with compassion for the self, and that cultivating a non-judgmental mind toward ourselves is the key to a genuine compassion for all beings.
We begin this process by asking what a non-judgmental mind looks like, and what it means to be free of the burden of the inner critic. To understand these questions experientially, we need to turn our attention to the judgmental mind and embrace its pain with the same mindfulness we would bring to a pain in our body or to another’s sorrow.
The essence of mindfulness is to see, to understand, and to find freedom within everything that feels intractable and clouded by confusion. Mindfulness is a present-moment experience, concerned with embracing and understanding the entirety of each moment with tenderness, warmth, and interest. In the light of this engaged attention, we discover it is impossible to hate or fear anything we truly understand, including the judgmental mind. We begin to see that the greatest barrier to compassion and freedom is not the pain or adversity we meet in our lives but the ongoing tendency to criticize and fear the simple truths of the moment. Instead of just wanting the judgmental mind to go away, we could begin to ask what it is teaching us. Abhirupa Nanda, a nun from the time of the Buddha, suggested meditating on the unconditioned. Liberate the tendency to judge yourself as being above, below, or the same as others. By penetrating deeply into judgment, you will live at peace.
Looking closely at the judgmental mind, we see that it is rarely truthful or able to see the whole of anything.
Although it may seem so, we were not born with a judgmental, aversive mind. It is a learned way of seeing and relating, and it can be unlearned. Looking closely at the judgmental mind, we see that it is rarely truthful or able to see the whole of anything. Instead, the judgmental mind is governed by seizing upon the particulars of ourselves and others and mistaking those particulars for the truth. A friend neglects to return a phone call, and this triggers a cascade of anxious thinking that convinces us they are an indifferent person or we are unworthy of their attention. We arrive late for an appointment and in moments the inner critic determines we are a mindless failure. The practice of meditation, of discovering what is true, suggests there is another path that can be followed.
In the Sufi tradition it is suggested that our thoughts should pass through three gates. At the first gate, we ask of our thought, “Is it true?” If so, we let the thought pass through to the second gate, where we ask, “Is it necessary or useful?” If this also is so, we let the thought continue on its way to the third gate, where we ask, “Is this thought rooted in love and kindness?” Judgmental thoughts, which are neither true, helpful, nor kind, falter at the gates.
Students often wonder why the judgmental mind does not appear in the traditional list of afflictions that Siddhartha met under the Bodhi tree. Perhaps it is because the judgmental mind is not one affliction or hindrance but a compounded hindrance. If you explore just one moment during which the inner critic is operating, you sense how the winds of all of the hindrances flow through it. There is craving, which takes form in the expectations and ideals we hold for ourselves and others. There is restlessness and worry — the shoulds and expectations generating endless thought and emotion as we struggle to avoid imperfection. And there is aversion and ill will, directed toward ourselves and others when our shoulds and expectations are disappointed. Doubt makes a powerful appearance too—doubt in our worthiness, goodness, and capacity. Then there is the affliction of dullness, which makes a disguised appearance in the form of despair, resignation, and numbness.
Holding all of these afflictions together are the beliefs we have regarding who we are and who we are not, which continually fuel the afflictive emotions. But the path of awakening invites us to understand this compound of the inner critic, to learn how to loosen its hold and power, and to rediscover all that is true within ourselves and others. The path invites us to extend kindness, rather than harshness, to ourselves and all beings and to learn to see a thought as a thought, rather than as a description of reality. On the path, we can begin to see that self-judgment or judgment of another is no more than a thought that is laden with ill will and aversion. There is a profound liberation in knowing this so deeply that we can let go of ill will.
Nurturing our capacity to be mindful and present is the first step to understanding and disempowering the identity and power of the inner critic.
The Buddha taught that what we dwell upon becomes the shape of our mind. If we dwell on ill will, directed outwardly or inwardly in the form of blame, disparagement, or aversion, it will become the shape of our mind until all that we see is that which is broken, flawed, imperfect, and impossible. In India there is a saying that when a pickpocket meets a saint in the marketplace, all he sees are the saint’s pockets. Habit and awareness do not co-exist. Nurturing our capacity to be mindful and present is the first step to understanding and disempowering the identity and power of the inner critic.
We can learn to pause and to listen deeply to the voice of the inner judge, with its endless symphony of blame and shame, and we can surround it with the kindness of mindfulness. We can investigate the truth of its story. We can begin to sense that the inner critic truly warrants compassion, as does any suffering and affliction. Instead of fleeing the painfulness of the judgmental mind we can turn toward it, sensing that everything we are invited to understand in the journey of awakening can be understood within the judgmental mind. Letting go, compassion, the emptiness of self, equanimity, and wisdom are the lessons we are invited to explore with this most powerful of afflictions. The alchemy of mindfulness is to nurture a sense of possibility. We are encouraged to imagine a life free from ill will, blame, and shame. To imagine a life and a heart of compassion, wisdom, and peace.
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