Uncomfortable

This book of Pema Chödron's is extremely good. She is an American Buddhist nun, and she has a wonderful, compassionate writing style, moreover her understanding seems very solid and deep, consistent with my own understanding, developed over my short period of practice.

I can really identify with this excerpt. I have this habit of encountering unpleasant thoughts, memories and feelings while progressing through my constant mental self-narration, and immediately trying to move away from the unpleasantness. However, I've found that through meditating I am more likely to acknowledge the unpleasant thought and let it sit. This helpe me to understand my own psyche much better, and by understanding it, acknowleding its defects lovingly, I can truly accept and love myself. I have made some important discoveries about myself this way.

I titled this commentary "uncomfortable" because, as part of a moral inventory I am taking of myself, I have encountered a major, and kind of nasty surprise. I have talked about it at length with a few people, and it hurts alot. It may be like an arrow lodged in me. To heal, it needs to be removed, but it is painful coming out. This practice of meditating and looking at my own thoughts with loving acceptance and appraisal has helped me to discover this arrow. I had repressed its effect effectively. I also never admitted how much I hated the arrow, because part of my self-narrative is that I am kind an loving, and that i cannot hate.

This acknowleding of my own emotions has been quite stormy, mainly because I now am aware of them. I believe I used to get angry or upset or insecure about a situation, but not be conscious of it. It would affect my outlook and my actions without me even really knowing. Now, something will bother me, and then in meditation my mood change will be set in stark relief, and I will see it clearly, and realize that I have, in fact, been bothered. I now notice that random day-to-day things bother me a fair amount, but also that this passes relatively quickly, especially because I can act on any resentments that build.

For example, I was involved in a misunderstanding a few days ago, and I was really bothered by it. But I saw this clearly, and worked actively to free myself of the resentment, so that by the next day I was recovered, and could genuinely laugh about the incident with the other fellow.

Anyway, ta ta for now.