Post date: Apr 27, 2020 4:2:45 AM
Birds chirping, sun shining, cat meowing...
Life! Such beauty! Such joy! Such delight!
Just Being. Being aware.
Aware Being singing the pure joy and beauty of Being....
And then the pain that appears - the pain of illness, the pain of failure, the pain of rejection, the pain of abandonment, the pain of abuse, the pain of fear, the pain of grief, the pain of self loathing, the pain of hopelessness, the pain of despair, the pain of confusion, the pain of corruption, prejudice, exploitation, inequity, war, pandemic...
How does the pure joy and beauty of Being meet these?
Not with indifference. Not with judgment, criticism or rejection.
With an open mind, a full heart, and the willingness to connect.
With compassion, acceptance, and loving-kindness.
With the gift of our full attention.
With non-violent actions that stop the violence where possible, hold the perpetrators accountable, and protect.
With responses that are healing.
With the offer of guidance where it is requested.
With the willingness to remain available for everything while imposing nothing.
It seems that our emotional suffering comes down to one essential mistake - believing and feeling that we need something that we do not have - to be seen and heard, to be accepted, a relationship, a situation, an object, or a skill. That is, we need the current situation or experience to be different; rejecting what is and needing what is not; resisting what is and seeking what is not. That is, arguing with reality. As Byron Katie put it, "When I argue with reality I lose; but only 100% of the time."
These rejecting, resisting responses that argue with the reality of our current experience are deeply conditioned cultural habits that have been passed down for generations, just as the language that we think and speak in has. We will not get rid of these hurtful habits, nor need we, for the mind has an infinite capacity for new learning. At all times we remain free to learn anything we want, anything that catches our interest - new languages, new skills, new games, new routines, new habits...
We can learn the language of not arguing with the reality of our current situation and our selves in it; of accepting and welcoming the situation and ourselves in it as they are, beyond needing and longing for the situation and ourselves to be different. Our interest and motivation to learn this arise when we begin to realize that our life situation and our self in it are one thing and what our mind is saying about our life situation and our self are another; when we begin to notice that our emotions come, not from the situation or our self, but from what we are telling ourselves about it and ourselves. As Shakespeare stated, "There is nothing good or bad; thinking makes it so". When we notice and then differentiate our situation and ourselves from our thoughts, opinion, ideas, and judgments about these, we can see that our emotions come, not from what is happening, but from what we are telling ourselves about it.
Also, we can learn to notice our avoidance and resistance to our feelings and learn to go in the opposite direction - facing, allowing, accepting and even welcoming our feelings. As we develop our capacity to feel and need not escape our feelings, we can learn to explore the related presumptions we are treating as facts about ourselves, others and the world and explore the reality of our immediate, intimate experience to determine if they are indeed facts or merely presumptions. Consider the possibility that all our emotional suffering comes from this age-old habit of unwittingly treating our presumptions as facts. For example, not being able to do something is not a problem until we want to be able to do it and cannot in that moment, and we presume we ought to be able to.
What if we shifted, aligned with the reality of our situation and did not want to do whatever it is until we could?
Why want what is not available and reject what is?
Accepting the situation as it is has nothing to do with passivity. When the situation is hurtful, unhealthy, destructive, dangerous, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic we can accept it as it is, with no judgment that it should be different and respond in ways that are loving and intelligent to protect, stop the pain, stop the danger, and support healing.
#KnowThyself