I needed to have a second post today because I was itching to share something that I had read from "The Art of Happiness - A Handbook for Living" by The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler, that is very relevant to a conversation I recently had with my friend Ange. In the book, His Holiness discusses how shifting your perspective can help you deal with tragedy or anger, particularly in regards to people who may have hurt us. He says:
"The ability to look at events from different perspectives can be very helpful. Then, practicing this, one can use certain experiences, certain tragedies to develop a calmness of mind. One must realise that every phenomena, every event, has different aspects. Everything is of a relative nature. "
"If you look from a different angle.... then surely the person who caused this anger in you will have a lot of other positive aspects, positive qualities. If you look carefully, you will also find that the act which has made you angry has also given you certain opportunities, something which otherwise would not have been possible, even from your point of view. So with effort you will be able to see many different angles to a single event. This will help."
"You need to use all your powers of reasoning and look at the situation as objectively as possible. For instance, you might reflect on the fact that when you are really angry at someone you tend to perceive them as having 100 percent negative qualities. Just as when you are strongly attracted to someone the tendency is to see them as having 100 percent positive qualities. But this perception does not correspond with reality...... So, even though when you are angry at someone you might feel that the person has no positive qualities, the reality is that nobody is 100 percent bad. They must have some good qualities if you search hard enough. So, the tendency to see someone as completely negative is due to your own perception based on your own mental projection, rather than the true nature of that individual."
"For a spiritual practitioner, one's enemies play a crucial role. As I see it, compassion is the essence of a spiritual life. And in order for you to become fully successful in practicing love and compassion, the practice of patience and tolerance is indispensable."
My dear friend Ange, based on our conversation on the weekend, you had figured this lesson out all by yourself. These words from the Dalai Lama can just re-emphasise to you how enlightened you actually are....So apt that I happened to be up to this part of my book now.
P.S. I chose this picture because it reminds me of you and I trying to figure out all these life lessons - in essence, we are having to turn upside down in order to change our perspective of the world so that we can grow and move forward. x
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