Monday, March 17, 2014

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."







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