Sunday Quote

"The opposite of samsara (The eternal cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth) is when all the walls fall down, when the cocoon disappears and we are totally open to whatever may happen, with no withdrawing, no centralizing into ourselves. This is what we aspire to, the warriors journey. That is what stirs us--leaping, being thrown out of the nest, going through the initiation rights, growing up, stepping into something that is uncertain and unknown.

What do you when you find yourself anxious because your world is falling apart? How do you react when you're not living up to your image of yourself? Everybody is irritating you because no one is doing what you want. And your whole life is fraught with emotional misery and confusion and conflict.

At these times it helps to remember that you're going through an emotional upheaval because your coziness has just been in some small or large way addressed. It's as if the rug has been pulled ou from under you. Tuning into that groundless feeling is a way of remembering that basically you do prefer life in warriorship--to death."

-Pema Chodron