Suspend Your Love of...
There's nothing which does not grow light,
through habit as good as familiarity,
putting up with small cares,
I'll sight myself to bear with good adversity.
Shantideva-"Way of a Bodhisattva"
These lines have been with me for a good three years now. we memorized them during a tumble practice duration class, as good as right away silently intone them any night as we brush my teeth. Why then? Well, it's an bland activity, so we know I'll listen to those difference running by my thoughts during slightest once a day, no matter what.
Why these lines? Well, "little cares" are everywhere. Even upon a most appropriate of days, something tends to happen which isn't "what I'd want."
Lately, we have beheld how those "little cares" tend to be tied to wanting something or someone, as good as not removing that. Something goes wrong, or delays me, as good as I'm not able to achieve a small idea we have in mind. Someone doesn't respond in a approach I'd hope they would, as good as we feel a sense of loss. Something we own falls apart, as good as we have to fix it, do without, or get a new one. The weather changes, as good as we have to regulate my clothing, or approach of removing around. Really, a opportunity for small cares to come up is almost endless.
How does a single "put up" with small cares? Not removing bending is a single response. Another competence be to suspend a love we have towards a sold storyline we bring to a moment. A third approach competence be to simply accept which we don't know what a small care of this impulse - a damaged pencil, a unreturned phone call or e-mail- means in a grand scheme.
Another thing I've beheld newly is how a thoughts likes to conjure up up a "great adversities," which we're substantially hard wired to do so. And since a thoughts leaps to a big, dramatic place ! so easil y, then a small cares of any given day get trustworthy to a bigger narrative.
Each of us appear to have a own sold grand dramas which we go behind to again as good as again, attaching a small cares of any day to them. When we am able to tumble out of love with my sold dramas, those small cares cease to be cares during all. They are no complaint really. The unreturned phone call isn't about me as a person. The damaged spoon is only a damaged spoon. It all grows light in this way, as good as we can feel which lightness in body, heart,and mind.
What is "great adversity"? Do we know? Sitting hours as good as hours of zazen competence be good grief for some, though for others it's only a source of suffering as good as suffering. Chronic illness competence be a form of good grief for some, though for others it's only a highway to hell. Loosing a pursuit competence be a form of good adversity, or only an additional tick upon a "I'm fucked" clock. The genocide of a loved a single competence awaken good adversity, or it competence be a tipping point of loosing your own life.
It's quite helpful, we think, to commend which grief isn't your enemy. That we need not request a conventional meaning of any word to your experience. We can suspend which habit as well, as good as become familiar - maybe - with whatever it is that's essentially there, in this life of ours.
