EVERYTHING LEANS
Healthy patterns of thinking are said to enhance our lives while unhealthy patterns tend to be frowned upon. Yet, if we look at any scenario from an unbiased state we can unearth a deeper truth. Let’s consider that emotional states are a type of informed power designed to aid us in making decisions. While external triggers may cue a myriad of feelings to surface we still have to make the decision to jump on board of emotional roller coasters. Just because we fail to act like it doesn’t mean we aren’t in the drivers seat.
Don’t misunderstand. We humans want to be free from suffering and living happy lives but we don’t always get what we want. Plenty of mystics have been misinterpreted over the millennia by offering a perfect state of being where we are at peace. We hear these concepts and latch on our own versions of what we think that peace should look like and completely miss the point. To constantly chase after scenarios we want and to avoid what we don’t is to miss out on huge chunks of life. When the Buddha taught that everything leans he was unmasking a hugely profound concept our modern minds will more equally recognize stated like, “if we had never known bitterness how could we ever enjoy sweet?”
Why cut ourselves off from the mystery of existence by searching for definites or labeling things with like or dislike? Chances are our labels merely serve as a way to share an idea without capturing the essence of whatever we are labelling. Life challenges us to bear with it and accept that we may never find a conclusion. So the next time you want to shut down around an experience by clinging to what you think it should be, try pausing and questioning its nature. Instead of reacting in that old familiar way try exploring what this ‘thing’ allegedly is.
By feeling the full range of human emotions and accepting that they’re all part of being alive we break up the pattern of avoiding or chasing wants and desires. In many ways this is how life challenges us to redefine REAL. After all, when has life ever fit into our preconceived notions to begin with?
You are going to fail. Accept it and try again.
Mystical Mindstate 