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

 

Buddhanature - like the Sun, Lotus, and Gold

     "Sun, lotus, and gold - three traditional Buddhist symbols for buddhanature, our unchanging wakefulness.
     Like the sun, our buddhanature always shines, even if the clouds temporarily obscure our view of it.
     Like the lotus, it grows pure and unsullied from the mud of our passion, aggression, and ignorance.
     And like gold, we need only purify the dross of our obscurations to experience the beauty and brilliance of our true nature."

       John Tarrant, Shambhala Sun, September 2013