I like this quote which was credited to the Dalai Lama:
Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.
There are many times in my life that I feel precisely that. But as of now, I still get irritated when my head and my heart are not aligned. I-know-I-should-do-this-but-I-don't-want-to kind of things. I suppose not getting what I want is there to teach me to be patient and to be disciplined! Key ingredients to getting anything done, enlightenment included.
I was taught that once we can see that our bodies suffer all the time, not sometimes, we will naturally let it go, just like when we are holding something extremely dirty or really unpleasant, we will just throw it away immediately. Most people, me included, can only see that we are happy sometimes and miserable some other times. As a result, we cherish only the nice parts and struggle to get out of the unpleasant ones. That is, we don't accept things as they are. From the Buddhist point of view, every events are equal in that they all satisfy the same law of ever changing.
Sometimes I get bored of practicing walking meditation, but then I don't want to be reborn and relearn all the mistakes, growing up and all, so it's like I have no choice but to get this nirvana thing done and over with. It is THE job that I have to complete, if not in this life time then the next.
In the mean times, I have to be careful not to do anything bad (like having affairs) so they don't come back to make my task more complicated. Sometimes I think I'm fair not because I'm good but just that everything I do come back to me eventually, good or bad. So being nice to people is like being nice to myself essentially.
I was taught that once we can see that our bodies suffer all the time, not sometimes, we will naturally let it go, just like when we are holding something extremely dirty or really unpleasant, we will just throw it away immediately. Most people, me included, can only see that we are happy sometimes and miserable some other times. As a result, we cherish only the nice parts and struggle to get out of the unpleasant ones. That is, we don't accept things as they are. From the Buddhist point of view, every events are equal in that they all satisfy the same law of ever changing.
Sometimes I get bored of practicing walking meditation, but then I don't want to be reborn and relearn all the mistakes, growing up and all, so it's like I have no choice but to get this nirvana thing done and over with. It is THE job that I have to complete, if not in this life time then the next.
In the mean times, I have to be careful not to do anything bad (like having affairs) so they don't come back to make my task more complicated. Sometimes I think I'm fair not because I'm good but just that everything I do come back to me eventually, good or bad. So being nice to people is like being nice to myself essentially.
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