Tag: life

It is inevitably true that life is suffering. But the reverse is also true: suffering is life. It is in the midst of suffering that we get to exercise so many of the virtues that make us human. Our sense of courage, justice, compassion, wisdom; all these things manifest and operate in and because of the reality of suffering.

— Barry Magid, Ending The Pursuit Of Happiness

Don’t expect too much from therapy.

— James Low

When I first heard James say this on his podcast it stopped me in my tracks. James is not only a Tibetan Buddhism Dzogchen teacher but he also spent many years as a psychotherapist, so he knows a thing or two about therapy.

I underwent a few years of psychotherapy myself and look back on that time as one of the most profound and transformative periods of my life. So much so that I even considered training to become a therapist myself.

For me the benefits of therapy were demonstratively positive. So to hear a therapist warn not to expect too much was startling. As I listened on keenly what James went on to explain made enormous sense to me.

In therapy, broadly speaking, we bring with us stories about our life. How it was, how it is and how we think it’s going to go. These stories are heard and honoured. In most cases the process of therapy affords us the space to rewrite those narratives with new stories.

What James meant by not expecting too much from therapy was to recognise that what we are essentially doing is swapping one set of negative stories for a bunch of new positive ones.

In the end they are all just stories about our life, but not actually our life, not the actuality of our lived experience.

Of course stories have utility but only up to a point. We don’t live the stories of our lives, we live our lives, and the stories come after.

As Alan Watts so eloquently said about Zen:

Zen is feeling life not feeling something about life.

I’ve heard so many people who are living with a cancer that is going to take them away say that there is a vernacular around battle terminology: You’re a winner or you’re a loser. It’s all about fighting. It’s such a red herring, that attitude, because it brings with it the concept that we might win…

— Tilda Swinton (from the New York Times)

If you do one thing today, open your hand and heart and let go of whatever you’re holding onto. What we want is happy to go, what we need arises without desire.

What if you did not separate yourself from the experience that is here now – whether that moment is a dark sky, a dark mood, or the joyful giggles of excited children? What if you allowed your heart to open to ALL of life, all experience – not just the things your mind imagines “should” be here? Why not awaken to the truth that what is here is an expression of a perfectly whole Reality, and invite it all back Home?

— Dorothy Hunt

After years of practice and contemplation, trials and tribulations, an eventful life with its fair share of contentment and trauma – I still can’t better these three simple words to sum it all up…

This is it.

There’s a kind of wisdom that only arises automatically as time passes that no amount of learning or practice can induce. No shortcuts. There’s no substitute for the experience of life lived.

For a time, words may encourage and inspire, but if you cling too long to a teaching, any teaching, it will blind you to your own life, your own being, your own truth.

— Robert Saltzman

Words can never capture what we are – language always fails beautifully in this regard – but this chap has a lovely turn of phrase and a simple brevity which always makes me smile and feel a gentle ‘yes’ every time I read him.