Perhaps it is just me? I benefit from the posts James shares. I am curious and I might not understand immediately. I have faith that things fall into place in time.

Thinking about these things helped me to step back and manage the grief of losing my dog. ❤️

My dog, my feelings. My way. We don’t get to decide what happens. Better to stop pretending and accept what is.

I loved him. He was a good dog. I was lucky to have him whilst I had him. That has to be enough.

We are in such a hurry to feel better sometimes. But in a rush it is like a flood.

You are a good person Tommy and a dear friend. You care about people. There is nothing wrong with that. ❤️

I’m sorry. My head is still not here. I just wanted everyone to feel included. ❤️

You had some good insights too Tommy.

Hello Everyone:

Dear James: I owe you an apology for my three posts in this thread. In my rush to express support for Thomas’s ideas and his mention of having compassion for people- without much awareness- I also supported the bit of pushiness/ aggression in his delivery. I regret that, James.

You wrote a post ago, “Heaven and hell are states of consciousness, not places somewhere else. Anger, greed, fear, control, statues, that is hell. Love, awareness, surrender, that is heaven. Both are happening now.”-

I suppose there was a bit of hell in my 3 posts, that is, in my consciousness, because I supported Anger and Control.

I’ll be working on these two items in my new thread about Anger, and I hope to reach closer to “Love, awareness, surrender, that is heaven”.

Thank you, James, for reaching my consciousness, and thank you Jana and Alessa for your recent posts here. You helped me too, bringing me closer to the heaven James is talking about. I wish everyone more and more heaven.

🤍🌿 Anita

Dear James:

You offered me grace 3 hours ago, not something I necessarily deserve, but something you offered me anyway.

This is what grace is about, isn’t it- something undeserved, or unearned, but offered anyway.

Thank you, James! I want to pass on your grace to others.

With love back to you-

🤍🌿 Anita

Dear Thomas: I would like to respond to your most recent post of.. exactly 20 minutes ago- tomorrow morning 🙂

Anita

James123,

There is no merging of ego or I. One grows into it as one’s life progresses. Boddhisatva do not reach for Nirvana because it is their wish to liberate all beings from suffering. Life isn’t wasted. It is spent in the honor of helping others with wisdom and compassion. Physical death is not the end.

He all

A student once asked Master Zhaozhou, “If the world is illusion, why does it hurt when I kick a rock?” Zhaozhou replied, “It is your perception that makes it real.”

The student misunderstood the teaching. He believed that if the world is illusion, then the rock and his foot must not be real. But when he kicked the rock and broke his toe, the pain was undeniable. The rock did not vanish. The foot did not disappear. The toe did not unbreak.

This is where we must be careful. Too often, teachings on illusion are used to silence pain, suggesting that suffering is a failure of insight. This is not the Dharma. This is misunderstanding dressed as wisdom.

Zhaozhou’s words were not meant to dismiss the pain or deny the body. They were not a prescription for ignoring wounds. The student must tend to his toe. Healing is necessary. Compassion is necessary. The Dharma does not ask us to bypass suffering; it asks us to see through it. All things in their time.

If we listen carefully, the teaching is not a weapon to invalidate trauma. It is not saying, “Your suffering is your fault. You should not be feeling what you’re feeling.” Instead, it offers a subtle invitation to be present.

Once the wounds are tended, once safety and care are restored, there may come a moment when the illusion of “I” can be gently questioned. Not to erase the pain, but to loosen the grip of identity around it.

But what does it mean to “see through” suffering?

The illusion was not the rock, nor the foot, nor the pain. The illusion was the student’s perception filtered through the lens of separation, the sense of a distinct “I” who suffers, who resists, who clings to the idea that things should be other than they are.
Here the ego might say: “The teaching are lies, I should not have kicked the rock; this pain is unfair” and oddly often at the same time, one wonders if only to increase the suffering a unskillful hope that “If only I were enlightened, this wouldn’t have hurt.”

If only I… if only I…

But when the illusion of “I” dissolves, what remains is simply this: A body moves. A foot kicks. A rock stays still. A toe breaks. Pain arises. Healing begins. No blame. No shame. No resistance. Just the unfolding of causes and conditions.

The teaching asks us to be present. To see clearly. To respond wisely. And sometimes, that means saying: “This hurts. I need help. I will care for myself.”

And yes, when the illusion of “I” dissolves… The body moves. The rock remains a rock. And the foot… The foot ‘knows’ not to kick the rock, not because it fears pain, but because it no longer acts from separation. It moves in harmony with the whole.

It listens. It sees. It learns.

To see through illusion is not to erase the wound, but to meet it without the story of separation. In that meeting, healing becomes not just possible, not just the closing of a wound, but whole.

Hi Anita,

I’d like to gently offer a “yes, and” on this statement: “For trauma survivors, the loss of self isn’t liberation—it’s fragmentation. Healing often requires reclaiming the self, not dissolving it.”

Yes: this is deeply true and must be honored – And – Wholeness may eventually include a loosening of the rigid self, not as erasure but as expansion. The journey of reclaiming the self can coexist with the possibility of transcending it.

Just as we must be careful not to use spiritual teachings to invalidate trauma or silence pain, we also need to be mindful not to silence the transformative insights that those traditions offer about the nature of self, liberation and wholeness.

The Dharma does not rush this process. It does not say, You are not real. It says, You are not only this. It says, When you are ready, there is more. Wholeness as presence of everything connected, seen clearly, held wisely, loved deeply.