Arrows aren't always bad
Jan. 18th, 2012 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabrinamariObstacles can become our teachers
On the night on which he was to attain enlightenment, the Buddha sat under a tree. While he was sitting there, he was attacked by the forces of Mara (the lord of destruction). The story goes that they shot swords and arrows at him, and that their weapons turned into flowers.
What does this story mean? My understanding of it is that what we habitually regard as obstacles are really the way the world and our entire experience teach us where we’re stuck. What may appear to be an arrow or a sword we can actually experience as a flower. Whether we experience what happens to us as an obstacle and enemy or as teacher and friend depends entirely on our perception of reality. It depends on our relationship with ourselves
Pema Chodron
******
I used to read this story and think some variant of "Yeah, right." But I just got the opportunity to experience it for myself in a small way. The squee I felt at turning the arrow into a flower was really cool. And I think it was good for both of us. You never know what's going to happen.
On the night on which he was to attain enlightenment, the Buddha sat under a tree. While he was sitting there, he was attacked by the forces of Mara (the lord of destruction). The story goes that they shot swords and arrows at him, and that their weapons turned into flowers.
What does this story mean? My understanding of it is that what we habitually regard as obstacles are really the way the world and our entire experience teach us where we’re stuck. What may appear to be an arrow or a sword we can actually experience as a flower. Whether we experience what happens to us as an obstacle and enemy or as teacher and friend depends entirely on our perception of reality. It depends on our relationship with ourselves
Pema Chodron
******
I used to read this story and think some variant of "Yeah, right." But I just got the opportunity to experience it for myself in a small way. The squee I felt at turning the arrow into a flower was really cool. And I think it was good for both of us. You never know what's going to happen.
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-19 11:10 am (UTC)It was recorded in November, shortly before 11.11.11, which many Kundalini Yoga practitioners believe to be the moment when the Piscean Age tipped into the Aquarian Age.
The guy being interviewed talked repeatedly about the need to take responsibility for how we react to the world, the idea that duality (the concept that the Divine is not the same as everything, including us) is being increasingly shown to be an illusion, and that there is a personal and cultural need to let go of what doesn't work - because the structures of our lives which are dysfunctional become increasingly unsupportable from this point.
The idea is that things aren't suddenly going to change overnight, but that holding onto our deluded thinking about the world and our places in it is no longer going to be supported by the structures and institutions we've created to bolster it; it's beginning to crumble, and we can't stop it. May as well get with it and do the work.
I couldn't help thinking of your posts of late.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-21 08:48 pm (UTC)I watched the documentary on the Buddha the other night, and they had great cartoons illustrating this. :) I want Flower Shields!
Also, this reminds me- the character for "Crisis" and "Opportunity" in chinese are the same thing. Or have a piece in common, I forget Anyway, its an arrow or a flower. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-23 08:36 pm (UTC)