Published Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Naturally held dear are those
who live with right action
and have found the Way,
and through insight become established in the truth.Dhammapada v. 217
Our aspirations to live in ways that are true, on all levels, inspire and energize our practice. With time and commitment these wholesome aspirations mature, bearing the fruits of clarity and understanding. But such energy and insight doesn’t promise to protect us from painful feelings; like loneliness for instance. We are surely all familiar with the feeling of wanting to be held dear. However, instead of following the wanting, what happens if we turn attention inwards and engage the heart’s ability to ‘be’ loving? Longing to be loved is natural on one level, but to make it our sole focus is to assume we are essentially lacking. Even if something like that were true at an earlier stage in our life, at this time we need to gently question all such assumptions.