Contemplative Monday

The following is from 'Heart Advice, Weekly Quotes From Pema Chodron'.

HOW CAN JOY AND PEACE BE FOUND?

"Recently I was teaching from a Buddhist text called The Way Of The Bodhisattva 

which offers guidance to those who wish to dedicate their lives to alleviating suffering

and to bringing benefit to all sentient beings.

This was composed in the eighth century in India by a Buddhist master named Shantideva.

In it he has an interesting point to make about peace.
 He says something along the lines of

"If these longed-lived, ancient, aggressive patterns of mine that are the wellspring

only of unceasing woe, that lead to my own suffering as well as the suffering

of others, if these patterns still find their lodging safe within my heart,

how can joy and peace in this world ever be found?"

Shantideva is saying that as long as we justify our own hard-heartedness 

and our own self-righteousness, joy and peace will always elude us.

We point our fingers at the wrongdoers, but we ourselves are mirror images;

everyone is outraged at everyone else's wrongness."