Today is Buddha's birthday and a national holiday. So, I didn't go to work. I get anxious when I don't have anything to do or have a lot to do and don't want to do any of it. That was sort of the case today. I didn't have any pressing matter that needed immediate attention but had some work that I could have done but didn't want to do. So, I felt anxious. But I caught myself and decided that I wasn't going to do anything productive today and accepted that. You know, accepting something gives you a lot of peace. Resisting something take a lot of energy. And for what? Internal resistance doesn't do anything but wear out our minds. So, why not just decide to accept it if we are not going to change our course?
Today's homework:
Lesson: When you abandon your Unconditioned Self, you go in search of satisfaction in the world around you. The search can be exciting at times, but it does not lead to lasting fulfillment because the searching means you often leave yourself behind. Ironically, it's only when you stop searching that you find yourself and happiness again. True self-acceptance is the realization that you are what you seek. What you are looking for in the world—love, acceptance, joy, peace—are all qualities of your true nature.
The more you accept yourself, the more abundant you will feel. Like attracts like. When you identify with the inherent happiness of your Unconditioned Self, you attract experiences and people that are entirely compatible with how you feel about yourself. As you increase your self-acceptance, you let yourself accept more happiness, love, peace and abundance.
Exercise: The Latin for the word "accept" is "acceptare," which means "to receive, willingly." The more you accept yourself, the better you become at receiving. Live with this thought today: "Happiness is here, because I am here." Another great affirmation is: "Happiness is where I am."
I think that's true. The more accept yourself, the better you become at receiving. I need to learn how to receive.
I am still having trouble accepting (or receiving) this unconditioned self. Is this like the self that a baby has, unformed by language, social relationships, values, experiences? Do we really want to return to the infantile state? Let's contrast your slogan, "Happiness is where I am," with the U.S. Army slogan, "Be all that you can be." From reading your blog, it seems to me that you are more in tune with the U.S. Army. (Whether joining the army brings one closer to fulfilling that slogan is another question.) This is where pop psychology or pop philosophy falls apart: contradictory slogans all seem true. And of course, they all CAN be true, but at different times, or in different circumstances, so one still has to make decisions and be wise instead of following slogans. Or so it seems to me, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean. This whole unconditioned self idea comes from from Eckhart Tolle's book A New Earth. I read the book a few times so this all makes sense to me. What he means by unconditioned self is the self that is aware of its awareness. In other words, in contrast to Descartes claim "I think therefore I am," Eckhart states that we are not who we think we are. We are the awareness that is aware of our thoughts. That is the unconditioned self. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteAh, good to know where this is coming from. I looked at some of the Amazon reviews. Most people just sort of bliss out on it. However, critics are accused of ego freak out. You can't win an argument against this because if you critique you are judging, and that means you are unenlightened, and therefore unqualified to judge. I do think people generally move to critique too quickly, judge too much, and pursue inappropriate images of themselves, foisted on them by advertising and ideology. However, we also easily accept things we should not accept, without even noticing. Is Buddhism too passive? These are thousand year old questions that will never have simple answers.
ReplyDeleteI see the comments disappeared. Well, whether we can accept ourselves or not, it's hard to accept Blogger. So many times I get messages that say something like "Blogger has a problem and has to go be sick in the corner. We are not very sorry, so we are dumping your long response into the ether." Wordpress seems to be more robust. But otherwise, things are going well.
ReplyDelete