You were a kid once and now you’re an adult. Would you say that you were “not right” back when you were a kid?

Just because you’re growing and improving doesn’t mean there’s anything “wrong” with the current you.

Also you can’t be responsible for everything bad that happens, that’s clearly impossible and take everything you read with a grain of salt since it’s your own personal journey in the end.

Vera,

In addition to The Ruminant’s heartfelt offering, consider that genuine resting happens when we give up the notion of being perfect. What are you chasing? What is he pain inside that makes it feel like you aren’t good enough here and now?

The crap here, there and everywhere in articles, self help blibberty blab and so forth do help nourish our tender shoots, providing conditions for us to blossom. But there is beauty in the seed. There is beauty in the tender growing. There is beauty in the bud. There is beauty in the blossom. Not a pushing drive to blossom, not beauty at the end of some path, some idea or notion that frees us. Beauty in accepting our garden is not quite what we want to see, so we sit down and play in the dirt, play in the flower bed. The path of joy is about self discovery, adventure, curiosity.

For instance, consider hunger. When you haven’t eaten in awhile, you get hungry. Does it occur to you that perhaps you should just “be OK” with the hunger? That its calling you to eat is somehow “not being OK” with who you really are, where you really are? Of course not! You get hungry, you eat. Easy-peasey. The spiritual quest is the same. Being OK “as is” includes accepting we have no clue what the heck we’re doing, so changing and growing and learning. Not to escape our “ugly” ignorance… but because you want to grow. That’s enough, that’s plenty. Not “is this hunger OK or not OK” just hunger, and food. Just the desire to grow, and growing. That’s when we can feel patience, understand calm abiding, and let our light blossom.

With warmth,
Matt

Vera,

When we eat, the body stops feeling hunger. However, when we’re low on self knowing, perhaps we dont feel the hunger as hunger. So we try to do some laundry. Still hungry. Go to the bathroom. Still hungry. Perhaps you’re not addressing your needs? Do you spend time being kind and gentle to yourself?

Buddha taught that we have a fundamental ignorance of how to find balance and joy. So, not knowing what we’re hungry for is something we just have to accept and explore. We only get a few instincts, and the rest we learn from our parents and teachers… who often don’t know how to find balance in their own body, or teach it. So we do the best we can, try to grow a loving garden for ourselves, help others with theirs’, and learn who we are along the way.

Consider you might be feeling a restlessness to find home, be peaceful. Consider doing metta meditation. Metta is the feeling of warm friendship that glows in the chest area. Buddha taught that metta helps concentration grow quickly, which leads to a smooth, peaceful and fluid mind. Consider “Sharon Salzburg guided metta meditation” on YouTube if interested.

Finally, consider that sometimes we seek answers because we wish to grow a new identity. Chogyam Trungpa exposed this flawed behavior in “Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism”. Learning and knowing isn’t as joyous and learning and doing. So, instead of hopping around for the solutions that seem best, we give what we learn some real effort and see what happens. Then we know, but also gain confidence, wisdom, and discernment. Said differently, when you identify a hunger, you’ll know you’ve met it when it stops. Often its metta, but don’t be afraid to go play… sometimes we just need to rekindle our playfulness, our laughter. This “what does it all mean” can seem very serious, and many teachers say “uh-uh… be playful, like children, then it will make more sense”. 🙂

With warmth,
Matt

I love the “learning and knowing isn’t as joyous as learning and doing”. It’s certainly true. I know I’ve been the victim of thinking that if I just know something, it’s enough. I’ve realized that it’s not. We actually have to practice what we’re preaching. It is really interesting to watch people who say all the “right” things about how one should live and then go and do the exact opposite 🙂 But I digress…

Being indecisive sounds like lack of confidence in one’s abilities to make the right decision. You know what chips away from your confidence every time you do it? Telling yourself that you’re being bad for being indecisive. It’s certainly not going to help. When I talked about rationalizing everything, I mean the verbal talks we have in our minds. “You should do that, no perhaps you should do this, you’re going to fail if you do that…” It’s confusing and it’s pointless. When you take away those words, you’ll end up with going with your gut feeling and doing what feels right at that moment. If it ends up being the wrong choice, then you learn from it, but you don’t beat yourself up about it. None of us can know the future. And seriously, if it’s about choosing what clothes to wear, it’s not a case of life and death. In fact, you could practice with that scenario. Look at your choices and every time a voice pops in your head that starts to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do, just let go of it. Tell that voice “thanks, but I’ll try something different now”.

I think we’re so used to the chit chat in our minds that we don’t even realize that it’s possible to just be and live without the constant chatter.