What do you run away from?

What do you run away from? Why is this?  What difference does this make if nobody is there?

Notice whether you allow others to impose their world of emotions on you.  You can choose to deflect or transcend such things. Simply stop taking things personally.

Notice if you always seem to be busy and/or get your kids' schedules jam-packed. Why are you really avoiding solitude and silence? Watch what happens as you reach that unspoken threshold.  Life as you know it,  falls apart.  Nature takes things into its own hands.  The universe reminds you that you cannot avoid facing yourself forever.

When you are finally alone, and the mind is quiet, you, the "ego" disappears.  As you view this as a symbolic release of what is not you, you start to notice thought and awareness of thought. The desire to control thoughts and events is replaced with trust and awareness of feeling.  Fighting, conflict, competition all cease. This is the end of a sense of togetherness, loneliness and comparing. In fact, no other remains. How do you respond to nothing?

Whether or not you spend time with others, you can choose to be friends with yourself. When you run away from something, like during nightmares, a goal you doubt, a relationship or opportunity you deny yourself, fear of not being, getting or doing exerts a hold over you. 

As you stop looking for answers outside yourself, the loving heart melts that which blocks you from merging with everything.  How you relate to peace determines whether you allow yourself to be disturbed. Grasp how it is to be free.  You are the problem and solution.

"People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates." -Thomas Szasz

"When you stop controlling things, you are not disturbing life, and life does not disturb you."
- Ajahn Brahm

Comments

[Bernie]

When a person feels stuck or victimized, they often learn to run away from the problem. This can be considered an empowering first step. However, no matter how fast they go... the problem seems to approach them in the shadows when they are not looking. All of one's energy then goes towards escaping and keeping one's distance from the past.

When one gets tired of running and the fast pace of avoidance that one has busied themselves with, they then slow down enough for the past to catch up with the present. One then either is engulfed by the shadows, or through their lengthy marathons and pilgrimages, have learned techniques to confront and vanquish that which is heavy by cutting through their fears.

With the ghosts of the past diminishing, people then begin running towards a future. However, the future goal seems to always be just out of grasp. In time, they lose interest, and suddenly without looking for the goal, it suddenly drops in their laps through the gaps of time. With such a realization, one stops running altogether, because intentions are then felt to be accomplished from within a state of stillness. Without doubt or worry or any affiliated tension, life begins to be lived as if for the very first time.

[Liara Covert]

Bernie, as you imply people often underestimate the value of direct experience. Even whatever a person appears to run from is 'a most precious thing' because experience itself is a timeless teacher. Taste life again, as if for the first time.

The Most Precious Thing

A monk asked Ts'ao-shan, "What is the most precious thing in the world?"
He answered, "It is the skull of a dead cat on the ground."

The monk was surprised by this answer and again asked, "Why is the skull of a dead cat the most precious thing?"

Ts'ao-shan said, "It is beyond any value and price."

[Hilary]

Hi Liara .. yes we all have our own solution and have always had it .. I love your story "The Most Precious Thing" - thank you .. Hilary