Transcending "Ordinary Unhappiness"

      “… all of a sudden a vision of life that you hadn’t known opens. But more often, one undertakes a practice, a training, a discipline to open the small sense of self, the ‘body of fear’ it’s called, this limited identity, and begin to sense something else that’s possible. And it can be as simple as beginning to sit in meditation and beginning to see the insanity of your own thought stream.”

        Jack Kornfield. “Awakening is Real. A Guide to the Deeper Dimensions of the Inner Journey.” Sounds True (Podcast #1 The Sacred Journey), 2012. 

What Works, What's Practical Right Now?

     Isn't it mind-boggling, when we look objectively, at the incredibly foolish things that supposedly mature, educated, intelligent people - including ourselves - have done?
     From the third-person observer's perspective, or our own 20-20 hindsight, the act is incomprehensible. Yet obviously, to the perpetrator, at the time, it was the best or even the only conceivable option!  
     This is why it's so easy to be harshly judgmental towards others as well as ourselves. With a clear, balanced perspective, a situation will appear radically different than through the ego's frosted lenses. And when our ego is threatened, we feel precisely as if our very life is in mortal danger - rational perspective can instantly vanish - welcome to the land of "temporary insanity" - "crimes of passion" - "that wasn't me" - "I don't know what got into me" - "the devil made me do it".

     “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”      Anais Nin

     So here's a very practical question: when we're in deep trouble, whose advice should we listen to, an objective third party's - OR - someone who supports our current perspective?

Dalhousie University campus - February 13, 2014