The greatest art in spiritual life is finding balance. The entire teachings of the Buddha are summed up in his encouragement to find and travel the middle path. To seek neither the extremes of mortification and aversion for life, nor the extreme of indulgence, losing ourselves in pleasure-seeking. The balance between these two is the path of awakening and freedom. The path of balance is to be with what is true in life and to love that, to be committed to the truth on every level of our being.
--Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart. Quote courtesy of Tricycle Magazine.
--Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart. Quote courtesy of Tricycle Magazine.
Last Monday morning, I was reveling in my reading materials: the uplifting e-mails from newsletter readers, the April 9 issue of Time Magazine and a slideshow on Forbes.com entitled the 20 Emerging Markets.
People were happy. Time reported that the Earth's tenants appear to be rallying to stop and reverse environmental pollution and depletion. Forbes Magazine recognizes once war-torn countries as up and coming economic players in the world. It's beginning to look like the world I've envisioned for the last 20 years.
Then I saw a sentence about the shootings at Virginia Tech. Once I comprehended the magnitude of this lone man's rage, I was also saddened that this news would now overtake everything else for at least the next month. Sad, not because the story should not be told, but because we might begin to focus, for too long, on our own fears and insecurities.
It seems that there's always a story or two of heroic efforts in tragedies such as this. Many will discover that their lives were saved by an intuitive detour and long estranged relationships will be mended. I will wait for those stories while I ignore the rest. All that, in time. Families must grieve and loved ones will rage.
Rather than for life to go on as usual, I would like it to go on stronger and better. Balance is so beautiful, but it often takes tremendous strength to gain and maintain it. When we're knocked to the side, either side, we must insist on the chance to regain our sense of balance with the knowledge that it often lies in a new place.
People were happy. Time reported that the Earth's tenants appear to be rallying to stop and reverse environmental pollution and depletion. Forbes Magazine recognizes once war-torn countries as up and coming economic players in the world. It's beginning to look like the world I've envisioned for the last 20 years.
Then I saw a sentence about the shootings at Virginia Tech. Once I comprehended the magnitude of this lone man's rage, I was also saddened that this news would now overtake everything else for at least the next month. Sad, not because the story should not be told, but because we might begin to focus, for too long, on our own fears and insecurities.
It seems that there's always a story or two of heroic efforts in tragedies such as this. Many will discover that their lives were saved by an intuitive detour and long estranged relationships will be mended. I will wait for those stories while I ignore the rest. All that, in time. Families must grieve and loved ones will rage.
Rather than for life to go on as usual, I would like it to go on stronger and better. Balance is so beautiful, but it often takes tremendous strength to gain and maintain it. When we're knocked to the side, either side, we must insist on the chance to regain our sense of balance with the knowledge that it often lies in a new place.
Photo: Ahmad Anvari