Buddha Had It Right

I found this quote in a recent Medium Magazine article by Rami Dhanoa, entitled, “The Single Sentence Buddha Kept Repeating When He Taught Mindfulness.”

To pursue mindfulness more intensely means to be ready for all the impurity that might come up as a result of it.

I don’t know if Buddha actually said this or not, but what I do know is that in a true growth process, we will inevitably be confronted with all our less-than-wonderful qualities and behaviors– not for blame and shame but in order to heal them.

If you are anything like me, you are in an ongoing process of learning how to live better– more loving, connected and wise, as well as more powerful in ways that express your greatest potential and contribute to others without doing harm. Like me, you likely find yourself in a perpetual process of striving to live with integrity in a world that is both heartbreakingly beautiful and increasingly frightening. And, like me, you may have decided that the way to do this is not through aggression, greed or hatred, but through building safe, cooperative and caring relationships, without sacrificing your authentic self… no easy task.

So I have altered the above quote, but I believe it delivers the same message. “If we want to survive better and live peacefully with others, we will inevitably be asked to face and rework all that is negative and harmful within ourselves (what I imagine Buddha meant by impurities).

To this day, I still come up against things I’ve said, done, or thought that I’m not proud of, things that certainly don’t align with my highest goals and values. I used to get lost in shame and blame over these things, but I get it now that while true inner work will inevitably lead us to what is life-promoting, it will also simultaneously uncover all that is in the way.

In the best therapy, and in the best spirituality (I believe), it becomes not only necessary but also desirable, to own and remedy this “shadow” side of ourselves. We come to understand that we are all so much more than the worst things we have done, and that to become our greatest selves, we learn to take responsibility for what is ours, and repair our human relations the very best we can.

IT IS THE SAME FOR A NATION AS IT IS FOR AN INDIVIDUAL. THERE IS NO REAL HEALING WITHOUT ACCOUNTABILITY

What if right now we could see America and all of humanity through a new lens– that we are actually in a healing crisis? What if we are exposing the worst that human beings are capable of BECAUSE, whether we are aware of it or not, we really want to grow up, live a safe, loving, relational life on a sustainable planet? In that framework, it is crucial and inevitable that our collective “shadow,” our most life-denying beliefs and behaviors, come into the light of day so that together we can own and heal them.

This framework does not immediately lessen our immediate challenges, but it opens the door to hope, which many of us desperately need right now. If as individuals we can learn to face our own shadow and heal– and we do this all the time, however imperfectly– there is nothing to say we can’t do this as a nation and as humanity..

Right now we are in an enormous struggle to expose corruption, abuse of power, exploitation, injustice and our own suicidal and homicidal tendencies, while at the same time we deny, minimize, avoid, justify and blame others. This is not a healing model. It is a tug of war.

Many of us know how painfully this dynamic plays out in our own lives. When we cannot face our negative impact on others and they cannot acknowledge theirs on us, we suffer terribly and too often pass that suffering on to our children and all the people around us.

This is what America in Therapy is all about. It is a blueprint for how we find the courage to face the harm we have suffered and the harm we are causing as individuals and as a nation, with a focus on repair and reconnection, not blame, shame and punishment, so that we can live our greatest human potential.

Buddha Had It Right.

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“On the path to peace, we will close the gap between Love and Politics”

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You can find me at www.phyllisleavitt.com

phyllis@phyllisleavitt.com

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Click here for my free PDF The 6 Secrets for Repairing Relationship After Conflict https://phyllisleavitt.com/wp-content/uploads/The-6-Secrets-To-Repairing-Relationships_-How-to-Reconnect-After-Conflict.pdf

To discover your Conflict Type and see the full PDF on all the Conflict Types, go to

https://phyllisleavitt.com/wp-content/uploads/Conflict-Style-Types-2.pdf

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