sadness

I had a day speckled with moments of deep sadness,

returning to a place

in my past that I did not want to be in.

I said to Will, "I just want to

run away and shave my head and become a nun...

then I picked up this book, that I haven't read in a

while "The Best Buddhist Writing - 2007",

sat outside in the beautiful fall afternoon weather,

and turned the page after the bookmark.

I began reading a passage from:

"Turning Your Whole Way of Thinking

Upside Down"by Pema Chodron

(who shaved her head and became a nun!)

this really helped...

Thank you Pema

"...What causes misery is always trying to get away from the facts of life, always trying to avoid pain and seek happiness - this sense of ours that there could be lasting security and happiness available to us if we could only do the right thing....... As long as we're caught up in always looking for certainty and happiness, rather than honoring the taste and smell and quality of exactly what is happening, as long as we're always running away from discomfort, we're going to be cauught in a cycle of unhappiness and disappointment, and we will feel weaker and weaker. This way of seeing helps us to develop inner strength.......... Instead of asking ourselves, "How can I find security and happiness?" we could ask ourselves, "Can I touch the center of my pain? Can I sit with suffering, both yours and mine, without trying to make it go away? Can I stay present to the ache of loss or disgrace - disappointment in all its many forms - and let it open me?" This is the trick.