Nova Scotia is a Canadian province of around 1,000,000 people and our home county in Florida has half that. But it is the public behavior in Florida that left much to be desired this time around.
When we are willing to stay even a moment with uncomfortable energy, we gradually learn not to fear it. Then when we see someone in distress, we completely open our hearts and minds to whatever arises. Exhaling, we send out relief from the pain with the intention that we and others be happy.
My wife Marie and I are a mixed couple. She's Canadian and I am an American. For the past 15 years we have spent our winters in Florida and our summers in Nova Scotia.
It takes some training to equate complete letting go with comfort. But in fact, 'nothing to hold on to' is the root of happiness. There's a sense of freedom when we accept that we're not in control. By not knowing, not hoping to know, and not acting like we know what's happening, we begin to access our inner strength.
As the epidemiological impacts of COVID-19 grow exponentially, so do business closures, unemployment rates, poverty, housing and food insecurities.
It's up to us. We can spend our lives cultivating our resentments and cravings or we can explore the path of the warrior -- nurturing open-mindedness and courage. Most of us keep strengthening our negative habits and therefore sow the seeds of our own suffering.
Pema Chödrön describes a liberating way to become intimate with our fears, instead of trying to get rid of or cast them out.
Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors — people who have a certain hunger to know what is true — feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad...
I spend many hours working on my computer while sitting in front of sliding glass doors so as to be part of nature.
Suppose there were a place we could go to learn the art of peace, a sort of boot camp for spiritual warriors. Instead of spending hours and hours disciplining ourselves to defeat the enemy, we could spend hours and hours dissolving the causes of war.