Reminder to self: don't duck away!

If you are anything like me, you like to engage yourself mostly with things you like, and avoid those things you do not like. This is a bit of a problem because first of all, there is no way you can avoid what life throws at you, and secondly, it is often from the challenges that you learn most. This is what slogan 49 from Lojong is about: "Always meditate on whatever is most challenging." In our Buddhist study group we are now looking at turning suffering and happiness into enlightenment. It is a beautiful teaching showing that whatever we experience can be used on the path to enlightenment, and even on a more mundane level, everything is workable.

Picture by Michel Le from Morlaix Ballet Camp.
Clearly a bit of a challenge here!

Meditating on what is challenging can come in different versions. For me, one of the easier versions is in my learning of ballet, where it is always challenging to see the parts of my technique that are not pretty. Yet, it is exactly working on the non-pretty parts and the scary steps where you progress. And nothing beats the feeling of doing that. This is why during the pandemic I started videoing myself and posting (admittedly the prettiest) parts of it on instagram. In my work I have been focusing this past year on building the habit of regularly reflecting on what I am doing with my time. For some reason I find it always really difficult to make the time to review at the end of the day and the end of the week. This past year I managed to get into the habit of weekly reviews with my "Eenvoudig Leven agenda" (Simple Living agenda) which has weekly worksheets for reviewing the past week (and always reminds you to love yourself). That helps a lot, and for the coming year I am working on developing more detailed long-term goals with a gantt chart. Progress happens slowly but surely! The most challenging difficult thing is to face negative emotions of myself and others--for example being afraid for when they get angry. This is one I am still working on. This slogan is a good reminder to stop fearing the moment of facing the difficulties. Because as I tell my students: it is worse to let those things stay in the dark and know that they are there than to actually face them. So, remembering this slogan is definitely on my list of good intentions for the new year, so I am less tempted to duck away for difficult things, and instead just face the
m.