Day 5 of upcoming back, 40 days from Heartbreak to "Almost Enlightenment"

5. Loving What Is

[ Welcome to your new lover, the one and only totally, TOTALLY trustable lover: Reality!]

We will be circling back towards this many times, as we explore the work of Byron Katie, as we discover the root of all suffering, as we wise up into the glory of now.

And for today, try this: make a study of when you feel unhappy.

And notice that it is always accompanied by a complaint about reality. (One of those shoulds or shouldn’t again, most likely).

Notice that.

Notice how if you wish harder and stronger that reality be different, you feel worse and worse.

And now try out, test out, tiptoe in to LOVING WHAT IS.

If all alone: love that. Just for a moment. (And then maybe another.)

If angry, love that.

If angry and angry at yourself for being angry, love that.

Is sad, confused, rushed, lazy….., whatever it is, love what is.

Buddha's truths, relationship's parallels, waking up to love in uncomfortable = real

Buddha truth: 4

Life is suffering ( can be)

Suffering from grasping: cling to, push away

Is way out: enlightenment

Is path to enlightenment



Susan Piver's take on this vis a vis relationships:

Relationships are uncomfortable

Trying to stabilize deny hide from discomfort causes suffering

Unconditional love is possible

Path is:
attention, with precision , on moment and partner

openness to what see

let go of trying to control




good,
and her comment:
of Buddhist trained marriage counselor:
in 30 years never found a couple where one didn't want more away ness,
one didn't want more closeness
good

now and then, healing game one more time

YESTERDAY IS GONE

[One of the great glories of the past: It is over.]




Think of an argument or a disagreement you have about something your partner, even your imaginary partner, did in the past.
Look at them, or imagine them in the present.
Feel, breathe, sense, aware your world in the present.
Then go back to the “story” about how the past “should have been different.”
Then come back to the present.

Look at them.
Say this: “I can go into the past and make myself….(sad, unhappy, angry, etc, you fill in the blank) with this story {{{ gibberish, gibberish, gibberish}}}. Or I can be present and notice this…..(fill in the blank with the present).”

Go back and forth on this for ten to twenty minutes.
Feel the calming wonderful peace of the now.

Good.