Dear friends
The novel Anna Karenina by Tolstoy has a dramatic opening:
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
This line came to mind this morning during meditation.
Whenever I sit I am in touch with the suffering in me, at the same time, in touch with the cause of this suffering.
Do you ever find yourself thinking “Why me?” “Why is this happening to me?”
The cause of suffering is our need to control, our wish for things to go our way, our difficulty in accepting uncertainty.
Is it really all about me, myself, mine? What if our anxiety and worry are about a family member who is ill or in great pain?
Why is our suffering so great then? Is there a way to detach from it and how? Should we detach from it?
I have no good answers and am still in the process of accepting and letting go.
I know strength is needed, I know faith is needed…I know I am worthy to live in peace..I know I am committed to the path
I am on… I know but still…I am trying to figure out the fear beneath the fear… The pain beneath the pain…
and the joy and peace that are beneath them all.
I shared this quote few weeks ago in my yoga classes (I have changed we into I) and it is still echoing in my mind:
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“I can’t, I’m afraid!” I responded
“Come to the edge,” he said.
“I can’t, I will fall!” I responded.
“Come to the edge,” he said.
And so I came.
And he pushed me.
And I flew.” (Guillaume Apollinaire)
Would love to read your thoughts, your way to peace.
Light and Love
Nurit
How I wish I had a perfect answer to offer up to you (and anyone else)! I don’t. Acceptance and letting go: it’s a PROCESS, not a single event! That’s something many different sources taught me. I think you are spot-on about how suffering emerges from the desire to control that which we cannot control, or for things to go a certain way. What I wish someone had said to me when I was much younger is this: it’s not about “your way!” It’s a way of a much higher power than you can imagine. I might have still resisted this because surrendering to realities we aren’t happy with is very hard work. Still, I wish the act of surrender had been modeled for me so that my longing for “my way” could’ve been replaced with a longing for something along the lines of “God’s will, not mine.” All this reminds me of the opening lines of Rumi’s poem, The Guest House. “This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival . . . ” As for the fear beneath the fear? For me, it’s fundamentally a fear of loss, change, alterations in the reliable status quo.
What helps and has helped me during and after hard times is to know and truly believe that I do and did my best in the given situation.. I know that you Nurit are doing you best in this difficult situation right now.
This message sat close by me for many years.
I recently shared it with a loved one.
When you walk to the edge of all the
light you have and take that first step
into the darkness of the unknown, you
must believe that one of two things
will happen. There will be something
solid for you to stand upon or you will
be taught to fly.
Patrick Overton,