Monday, July 10, 2017

Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel: Strength Is a Soft, Agile, and Open Mind That Bears Witness to Life


The way we respond to the stream of momentary experiences we call “our life” determines our move toward our habitual search for security or toward awakening.

How do we live a life we can’t hold on to? How do we live with the fact that the moment we’re born we move closer to death; when we fall in love we sign up for grief? How do we reconcile that gain always ends in loss; gathering, in separation?

If you don't look, you won't fall apart, if you don't fall apart, there is no liberation.
  
Strength is a soft, agile, and open mind that bears witness to life, rather than trying to fight against or live around undesirable experiences. Strength is our willingness to stay present in the face of uncertainty.

 Elizabeth Mattis-Namgyel
From The Power of an Open Question: 
A Buddhist Approach to Abiding in Uncertainty

 

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