Hi Everybody,
I went to a very interesting discussion meeting last night in which we talked about dealing with our anger. Both Buddhism and modern psychology tell us that we all have it of course...part of our inherent humanity...but there were some really interesting experiences of people experiencing really strong and potentially destructive anger, but because of their practice, being aware of it in time to deflect it, and in fact re-channel it, to enable them to create real value.
Anywhere we're in the middle of the Problem Paradox, how do we develop better strategies for dealing with all the tough stuff that life throws at us. We pick up where we left off last time.
' Moreover Buddhism goes on, the greater and more challenging the problems we embrace in this way, the greater the potential happiness they can release, since they demand so much more of us. They force us to demonstrate so much more courage and resilience to overcome them. They make us grow you might say... And although it may well seem counter-intuitive when we first bump into this idea, if we think about it even briefly, we can see that this kind of perspective on life does indeed chime with our experience. Think back to times when you have succeeded in overcoming a really difficult problem in your life, something that you felt had the potential to really knock you off balance, or change your life for the worse, something that even inspired a certain amoun tof fear or panic. And these events are by no means rare in our lives; loss of a job for example, or break up of a long-term relationship, or cancer, or some other life-threatening illness, or the death of someone you love.
When we overcome these potentially life-diminishing challenges, we may well continue to feel a certain amount of pain, that is not uncommon, but each time the victory gives a powerful boost to our sense of confidence and capability. We feel strengthened, and the bigger the threat to our stability we've overcome, the greater the boost. For some considerable time afterwards we experience a much greater confidence in our ability to deal with things in general, not just in that particular area, but right across the spectrum of our lives and activities. And with this increased confidence comes a greater sense of well-being.
Buddhism asks us to hang onto that understanding, that recognition. Since we have some experience of this potential in our lives it argues, we can learn how to build upon it and extend it. If we can do it once...why not twice...why not many more times? We clearly can't achieve great victories every day of our lives, but then we don't need to! But we certainly can achieve small victories all the time, and the inherent sense of well-being can become a daily experience, because we renew the positive energy and the optimism, and the self-confidence, within the structure of the daily practice. That is one of the reasons of course why it is daily.
And the key point to hang onto is that it is above all a philosophy built to last, since it is constructed out of the real circumstances of our lives, as they really are, tough and challenging, rather than as we frequently wish them to be, soft and easy. Buddhism isn't a soft touch, because life isn't a soft touch.
But perhaps most importantly, the sens eof well-being that this strategy promises, is contructed and put together, piece b ypiece, from within rather than from without. It comes only from the courage and the resilience and the determination that we steadily learn how to draw out from within, to overcome the problems. So it's not in any way fragile or ephemeral. It's not going to be blown away by something that happens to us, because it's not in any way dependent on our ever-shifting, ever-changing external circumstances. '
That's plenty for today I think. hope you enjoy reading it.
See you soon.
William
No comments:
Post a Comment