Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I've Been Remiss

When I'm not playing recorders, hanging with my sweetie, attending a meeting, or conducting worship, I'm sucking my thumb and watching TV and/or reading. So I haven't been writing lately. My bad.

Here's a recent piece of Buddhist wisdom:
Seeing ourselves plainly, we can change, and as we do so, it brings a feeling of great relief, as if we had dropped a heavy load.
Ayya Khema, "Who is My Self?
This reminds me of the somewhat paradoxical idea that we can't change anything about ourselves until we first accept ourselves as we are. The connection between these ideas is that we can't accept ourselves unless we first have seen ourselves plainly.
However, it's not easy to take an objective view of myself. I have an inner critic who can be scathing. So I may over-correct and decide that I'm the greatestt thing since sliced bread. Neither extreme is very helpful. Maybe it's time to reread "I'm OK; You're OK."