Be Spacious
When the mind lacks spaciousness, one is completely identified with thoughts, emotions, and roles. This state of being leads to deep unconsciousness, where the illuminated states of being that consist of love, peace, and joy are rarely experienced. A person lost in thoughts does not enjoy life, but endures it. Love quickly turns to disappointment and jealousy, and peacefulness is replaced by discomfort and anxiety. A lack of spaciousness creates a claustrophobic life, full of limitation, dissatisfaction, and angst.
Creating spaciousness in ones mind is the simple act of creating a layer of awareness around your thoughts, emotions, and roles that recognizes itself as separate from mind activity. It may start with the abstract idea that you are the experiencer of your thoughts and emotions, and have an existence independent of them. This abstraction, when grokked and applied throughout the day as thoughts, emotions, and roles are played out, begins the process of creating a layer of awareness unidentified with transient mental activity. It creates space enough to experience a thing without being consumed by it, and thus creates the opportunity to return to your natural states of love, peace, and joy.
December 19, 2016
Love Thy Enemy
The only way to destroy one’s enemies is to have none. There is no evil, only delusion. There are no enemies, only god. Only the heart’s capacity to disintegrate the differences between self and other-self can end the cycle of fear, hatred, and ignorance. That means blinking at neither the light nor dark, and looking even at one’s enemies and saying, “We are one body. You are me as well, even though you hate me and wish to destroy me.”
Love is the radical and unconditional acceptance of another being. It is the acknowledgement of other as self, and the acceptance of that other-self, even though they hate you or wish you harm. Avoid or withdraw from those beings who seek to harm you, but never make them your enemy.