Here is a quote from my daily Zen calendar.
Ultimately, happiness comes down to choosing between the discomfort of becoming aware of your mental afflictions and the discomfort of being ruled by them.
Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
The first thing that stands out to me is that I am choosing between discomforts…not between discomfort and something else. The second thing is that I have a choice. And the third thing is that we are talking about happiness. But how can I be happy in discomfort? Does that seem reasonable?
Being ruled by affliction offers no path forward. It is the place of stuckness. Playing the victim. Blame.
Awareness of mental affliction may be uncomfortable, but it does offer a way forward. If I am aware, if I am curious, if I can sit in the discomfort of knowing some sort of pain and not get tossed to the wind…I have a chance for happiness. I have a chance because I don’t try to avoid the truth or pretend it isn’t there. Awareness gives me a chance see the affliction for what it is, to turn in over in my hands, to understand it in a new way.
It takes courage to sit in the messiness of life. Our willingness to sit there allows room for acceptance, healing, humility, forgiveness. The home of true happiness lies within these places.
With great humility
Paula
This is a topic most interesting to me. From my perspective I disagree with Rinpoche or maybe I just miss the point. I don’t see happiness flowing from the choice of allowing awareness of afflictions to morph into letting them govern me. Happiness to me is getting what we crave and is short lived at best. If I don’t crave then goodby to happiness. But that opens the door to joy, living from a growing sense of love. Craving is stagnation. Cliff