Happydappy

Picked another random page from another not-so-random book today. Universe seems determined for me to work on Reconciliation.

Today’s book is True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart, by Thich Nhat Hanh. The para (which happens to be the start of the chapter Reconciliation) says,

In meditation also, we act according to the principle of nonviolence. This is because I know that I am happiness and that I am also suffering, that I am understanding and that I am also ignorance. For this reason I must take care of both aspects. I must not discriminate against one of them. I must not suppress one side in favor of the other. I know that each of them is vitally necessary for the other. The Buddha tells us: “If this exists, that exists.” This exists because that exists. So there should be no conflict, no violence, between one element of our being and another element of our being. There should only be an effort of taking care and being able to transform. So we must have a nonviolent attitude with regard to our suffering, our pain. We must take care of our suffering the way we would take care of our own baby.

We have to be compassionate to the “other” part of us. Hmm. I have to be compassionate to the other part of me. Studied so much about the Self and the Other (Orientalism and Occidentalism, etc), but never saw that Self and the Other residing right inside of me. Urghz.

None of us are perfect human beings. Yet, even though our world is how we see (or choose to see) it, as long as we do not accept that other part we deemed / viewed / judged as bad, how do we become whole? 😦 Just a thought. It’s too tough a question to tackle all of a sudden, but I’ll slowly chew on it. So much easier to just look at the happydappy parts and dance lightfootedly in the woohooos… but well, housecleaning in bits is better than another unexplained meltdown. Yet to zoom out enough to see which dapples which, but in any case …

Life’s looking pretty good today! Waiting for the emergence of the heroes to complete the count. ❤ ❤ ❤