Mara and the Buddha – Embracing our Suffering | Plum Village

Mara and the Buddha – Embracing our Suffering | Plum Village

After the election, how can we accept that we didn't get what we want?

A lesson in dhukka, dukkha, transforming suffering

Rilke on terror, courage

 'We must always trust in the difficult...'   What appears to us most alien will become our most trusted experience. 

We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for its 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 about 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. You must realize that something has happened to you. Life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hands and will not let 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.

'Courage' to realize freedom from suffering...The courage to meet our experience as it is...hwlps us be courageous in our lives...less reliance on our comforts.  more and more open to challenges of life...the Boddhisatva...being commited to awakening...staying in this realm until all beings are free from suffering.

Byrne - transforming suffering through compassonate curiosity

Based on dharma talk of Sunday, July 26, 2021 ~~~

Transofrming suffering through compassionate curiosity -- meet whatever is arising with curioisity...with acceptance. Creating more freedom in our lives.

Allowing it to come and go...

let it reveal itself....let life be life...let experience be expereince.

turn light inward...what am i noticiing, what am I feeling. .. in my emotions, in my physicality, in my physical body...

not get lost in a story..notice only how ti feels... curiosity can be the base for wise action. 

Curiosisty gives us some ' distance' from an expereince...allowinig us not to get hooked by the story we might be creating.  Bring 'interest' to the expereince.

doing so allows us to see the 'impersonal nature' of anger or other feelings....allows us to see the impermanace of the feeling...it's not 'me' or 'mine'... how does this feel? what is a 'wise response' to this feeling...curiosity is an expereission of the 'beginner's mind'.  Suzuki: in the beginninger's mind, there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind, there are few possibilities.'

Do things feel hot, warm? what manisfests... can we be aware of thouhghts... and bodily sensations ...with curiosity we can find new ways to respond...we can avoid 'reactiveness'.   Bring compasionate curiosity to our experience? Am I open to being, remaining curious...or do I need to leap to conclusions. 

Compassion brings the quality of caring to our suffering....w/ compassion, we can remeber our humanity...our buddhanature....our 'goodness' comes not from an inner nature...(good pepple, and bad people) but rather owing to what qualiites we feed...the qualities we put our atteention to... if we resond to phenomonen with anger...then that is the quality we are cultivationg...our character trait we reinforce...what we we think upon, becomes the inclination we cultivate...compassion helps us to keep our heart open to ourselves and to others...eg...putting a hand on our heart...helps us to put our intention in a helpful direction... 

COMPASSION AND CURIOSITY together are two wings of a bird...the wing of wisdom, the wing of compassion....a powerful combination..wisdom without compassion.  and vice versa can be limited...but meeting our experience with both can be transforming. Bringing CC to situations in our lives, to people in our lives.

CC is a way of seeing...a way of being in the world. Connecting with this energy as we go through our daily lives....if feeeling annoyed...I can try tto see with eyes of CC....I can be curious about my own responses...about other people's responses. Stepping out of our reactiviity ... what happens if I  become 'interested' 'curious' about a situation....compassion helps soften mindstates...like anger, irritation... we are able to return with kindness...

• 'I will not live an unlived life' by dawna markova.
• Peace is this moment without judgement...by Dorothy Hunt....
• as in 'this moment met with an open heart'...the judgment we make is a 'choice' an habitual choice....but it is a default ...yet a choice.....instead of CC...as an act of awareness, intentional awareness ...heading off the 'reactivitiy' ...giving ghe situation the bare attention .... then we can be more intentional about our response...bopefully not stepping into judgment...
• Posthelwatie...creat a clearing...this is an act of creating a clearing...CC is this process of 'creating a clearing in the dense forest of our life'... insight may come out of this intentionality of meeting our expereince with an open heart, with kindness, with compassion. 
• Antonio Machado...Walker' 

This quality of CC doesn't depend on how others respond.  

From Hugh's  Circle

For those who weren't able to attend the Live session today--or missed anything--here are some of the main themes and readings/poems. The focus of today's session was cultivating compassionate curiosity. When we meet our experience with curiosity, with interest, we are able to step out of identification with our experience--for example, anger--and experience the elements that make up the emotion--sensations, thoughts, feelings, impulses--more dispassionately. We are then in a position to choose wiser and more compassionate responses--and we can begin to become less identified with our experience as 'I' or 'mine' as well as seeing their impermanence. This way of looking at our experience with compassionate curiosity helps us to untangle ourselves from suffering and leads to greater freedom. Try bringing this attitude into your daily life--and your meditation--particularly when working with 'difficult' people or situations.... I'll share the poems and readings in a separate post...

You Have What You Need

One definition of an enlightened person is one who always has everything they need. At every moment what they need is there; they're not seeking anything. If you really are seriously practicing to be free and to simultaneously realize enlightenment, you never seek out of the immediate situation, no matter how bad it is. You transform the immediate situation into what you need.

Richard Baker Roshi. From "The Roundtable: Help or Hindrance" (Tricycle Fall 1996)