When our minds resist ‘what is’ we close off our creative abilities. It is easy to get stuck in our DUKHA aka “stinkin thinkin”.
According to the Buddhist, DUKHA is caused by TANHA (TRISHNA, Pali) craving, passion, clinging, grasping for things that can’t be obtained. This egocentric state is the root of all suffering.
We suffer when we resist ‘what is’. When we trust the process, we are in the flow of life. It is easy for me to dwell in morbid reflection and regret. It is not so easy for me to trust in the process, to embrace all of life’s messy bits with joyfulness.
At times I vacillate between deep sadness and intense joy and it’s all experienced in a nano-second. Sometime I will replay stories in my mind. I drift off into a sort of numb trance. Those string of thoughts can determine my mood. Sometimes I will deep dive into those thoughts which create such intense emotions that it can affect my mood for several hours. Rather than be present in the moment I’m reliving a past event in my life.
My inner guide goes idle, patiently awaiting for me to return. My inner guide trusts in the process. Breathes deeply of the fresh spring air. Notices the vivid greenery among the landscape. Smiles back at the joyfulness of my children. The dukha is dark with no such joyful agenda. It picks at raw wounds and keeps turmoil alive in a frothy torrent of emotions.
The Buddhist may say this is my human condition and so it is and so it has been since the beginning of the beginning of time. Others may say it’s the part of my reptilian brain kept alive by base desires. Eckhart Tolle describes it as EGO the little self looking to attack as a means of separation so the EGO can protect itself at the expense of feeding off its host.
The simplicity in my life is to recognize when my thoughts are in the now I am at peace and when they are not in the now I am not at peace. No matter what we call it. Here is where freedom lies. Then and there is where fear lies. Then and there can have debilitating power over my emotions and moods. Ironically my inner guide has no power in those spaces because they do not exist according to the Course in Miracles. Then has already happened. There has not happened yet. So they are two spaces, that have no space, in the now.
Does it not register as insanity to go somewhere that causes me to suffer, where I have no power and that does not exist. Instead I could be in the space of the present where all things are possible, where I am joyful and where freedom lives Yet somehow throughout the day I squander the gift of presence in exchange for the suffering of then and there!
May I trust the process. Accept what is. Stay present in this moment. Remember that here is where all things are possible. Here is all the exists. How would I like to show up in this moment? How about you? Now let’s go do it together ~