From "START WHERE YOU ARE"

[sabrinamari]

"To Know Yourself is to Forget Yourself

According to the teachings of vajrayana, or tantric, Buddhism, our wisdom and our confusion are so interwoven that it doesn't work to just throw things out. By trying to get rid of negativity, by trying to eradicate it, by putting it into a column labeled bad, we are throwing away our wisdom as well, because everything in us is creative energy-particularly our strong emotions. They are filled with life-force.

There is nothing wrong with negativity per-se; the problem is that we never see it, we never honor it, we never look into its heart. We don't taste our negativity, smell it, get to know it. Instead, we are always trying to get rid of it by punching someone in the face, by slandering someone, by punishing ourselves, or by repressing our feelings. In between repression and acting out, however, there is something wise and profound and timeless. If we just try to get rid of negative feelings, we don't realize that those feelings are our wisdom. The transmutation comes from the willingness to hold our seat with the feeling, to let the words go, to let the justification go. We don't have to have resolution. We can live with a dissonant note; we don't have to play the next key to end the tune.

Pema Chodron"

Taken from Early Morning Buddhist Inspirations

Comments

Aha! Vindication!

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

By trying to get rid of negativity, by trying to eradicate it, by putting it into a column labeled bad, we are throwing away our wisdom as well, because everything in us is creative energy-particularly our strong emotions.

We diminish ourselved by hiding from negative emotions like ostritches with our heads in the sand. The breadth of human experience makes us what we are. There is no appreciation of joy without experience of sorrow. There is no light without dark. There is no warmth without cold. There is no justice without indignation.

Brina, are you loving the direction of the Carnivalle story line as much as I am?

Re: Aha! Vindication!

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Yes---I was stupefied on Sunday---but that was partly because I MISSED THE PREVIOUS EPISODE!!!!

I can't believe it! I missed t5he episode in which MANAGEMENT is revealed! WTF!

Luckily, I know they will do that thing where they run "the last 3 episodes of Carnivale" on some upcoming Friday or Saturday night. So I watched it on Tuesday (I had taped it) utterly stupefied and transfixed the whole damn episode from 'scenes from last week' through Sophie turning around...I hardly breathed normally at all.

Wow.

Re: Aha! Vindication!

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

FD and I have spent the last 2 years going back and forth about which avatar is the good guy and which one is evil. After the last two weeks I no longer think the concepts of good and bad are operating in this mythology. We have light. We have dark. We have creation. We have destruction. We have balance, or at least we did until Scudder did what he did. (Watch last week's ep.) But I don't think Justin is the bad guy and Ben is the good guy, or vice versa. One is light. One is darkness. The balance between the two is what matters. Scudder upset the balance.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

All the interesting music in the world is full of dissonance -- it's absolutely necessary for movement. Constant harmony is boring as hell. Music that fascinates you does so because it is a constantly moving, shifting interplay of notes that form chords in patterns that progress, that GO somewhere, and the harmonic resolution at the end of a phrase or a piece wouldn't be nearly as beautiful without the energy built up through the tension of dissonance that came before.

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Good point!

[oakleaves.livejournal.com]

So have you read Richard Bach's Illusions yet, or what?

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

Yes, but not in years. I need to re-read it soon.

[methastra.livejournal.com]

The hand-written pages in the front are some of the best pages ever put into print.

Negative != Bad

[methastra.livejournal.com]

For some reason seeing elphaba_of_oz by calling you Brina was just strange, probably due to the resemblance to "Brian". For some reason this struck me as significant, though I don't quite get why. And then of course, there's the constant misspelling of my name, "Brain".

What I actually came here to say was this:

Negativity is often the label given to our shadow sides of our selves. People view their 'good traits' as things to keep and their socially declared 'bad traits' to be things to be destroyed or discarded. I don't think that this is a smart thing to try to do.

Good vs Bad, Light vs Shadow. People have the tendency to view what are actually complementary things as opposites. There is an important distinction. The things we consider our shadow sides are not 'the bad version of our light side' but simply our alternate sources of power.

Sometimes you fight fire with fire, sometimes you need water. Neither is better, they both can work, but they both work differently.

To embrace and honor your shadow side makes you stop working against it, but begin to work with it. That which you honor does not clamour any longer for your attention and recognition like an loud frustrated child. Once you take it lovingly as a part of yourself, it will no longer try to trip you up so that you will pay attention to it. Love it as you love the rest, and it will treat you with love in return.

As an expository anecdote (you know, you just don't hear "expository anecdote" nearly enough in conversation), and since you were talking about your recent readings, I'll share one of mine. I went to a trusted psychic I've had a few readings from before. Her stuff is usually long-range and she hits about 2 years out (needless to say, it took me about 2 years to figure out she didn't suck). Anyway, I've gotten a few readings from her, and they've always been the usual combination of 'do this, watch out for this, you might have a problem here' kind of thing. I went to her for a reading and it was generally the usual 'tell me things I already know' kind of thing, pretty much saying I was headed pretty much where I thought I was headed for the next few years. At the end of it I asked, "Okay, any problems? I haven't heard anything cautionary like usual." She said, "No, because you simply adapt to whatever happens, and flow with the changes instead of trying to avoid them. There is no resistance this way, so you will have no problems." I largely attribute that to my conscious choice to recognize and work with my shadow side.

By 'working with' I mean that you have to do more than just acknowledge that it exists, you must participate with it. This may mean doing things that violate the social norms, but you have to let it out to play, albiet in ways that are not destructive to you or others.

As an amusing note I was talking to one of my friends who is very in touch with her shadow side, more so than her 'light' side. We were talking and suggested she might want to balance out and find her 'fluffy bunny' side. :-) It can work both ways!

- Brian

Re: Negative != Bad

[sabrinamari.livejournal.com]

There's alot of food for thought, here, Brian. Hmmmmm.

I am sorry that I didn't get a chance to call you today. You're probably busy now; it's Friday night. Hmmmm---maybe tomorrow.