Small Thoughts, Heavy Gravity

=Hope=

If anything has ever held me back in life it has been the concept of hope. I am realizing that hope is important for many people because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow we will be better we can bear a hardship today. But that is the most that hope can do for us - to make some ridiculous hardship lighter. But when I reflect deeper into the concept of hope, I see something pretty tragic. Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment, and thus life is literally flying by. We use hope to believe something better will happen in the future, that we will arrive at peace sometime soon..hopefully. Hope becomes a kind of obstacle. If you can refrain from hoping, you can bring yourself entirely into the present moment and discover all the joy that is already there...We must go back to the present moment in order to really be alive.

Western civilization places so much emphasis on the idea of hope that we sacrifce the present moment. Hope is for the future. It can not help us discover joy, happiness or peace in the present. I do not mean that we should not have hope, but essentially that hope is not enough. Hope can create an obstacle for you and if you dwell too much on it, we can not live entirely in the present, where we can find that joy and peace are inside of us and all around us.

=Essence of Cohabitation=

Every person has an essence. Our essence defines our existence, likewise our existence does not predetermine our essence. When it comes to living with someone in equilibrium and happiness, we have to see the essence of the person. Once we see it, we understand him or her, and there will be no trouble. We can live peacefully and happily together.

For instance, when we bring natural gas into our homes for heating and cooking, we know the essence of the gas. We know that gas is dangerous, it could kill us if we are not mindful. But we also know that we need the gas to cook, so we do not hesitate to bring it into our homes. The same is true of electricity. We could get electrocuted!, but we know the essence of the electricity. A person is the same way. If we do not know enough about the essence of that person, we may get ourselves into trouble. But if we know, then we can enjoy each other person to his or her full potential and benefit a lot from one another. The key is knowing a person's essence. We do not expect a person always to be a flower. We have to understand his or her garbage that is the foundation of the flower...

=What's not wrong?=

Why is it such a familar practice to ask..WHAT'S WRONG? For the lord's sake, doing this we invite all the painful seeds of sorry to come up and manifest 1 or 100 times over in that person. We feel suffering, anger, and depression, and produce more such seeds. We would be much happier with our relationships and with ourselves if we tried to stay in touch with the healthy, joyful seeds inside of us and around us. We should learn to ask WHAT'S NOT WRONG? and be in touch with this. There are so many elements in the world and within our bodies, feelings, perceptions, and consciousness that are wholesome, refreshing, and healing. If we block ourselves, if we stay in the prison of our sorrow, we will not be in touch with these healing elements.

Life is full of little things and instances compact with simple beauty, and many of us have to change the way we look at them to fully appreciate them. Like breathing for example. We don't need to wait until we have Asthma to enjoy our breathing. Awareness of the precious elements of happiness is itself the practice of right mindfulness. Elements like this are within us and all around us. In each second of our lives we can enjoy them. If we do so, seeds of happiness will be planted within us, 1 to 100 times over again. The only way to or to get something is through that something. The only way to happiness is happiness itself. Wherever we are, any time, we have the capacity to enjoy the sunshine, a tree, the presence of a friend, numerous simple things. We don't have to travel anywhere else to do this. We can be in touch with these things right now...