Faith, fear and attention
Eroded faith opens the way to unreasoned, illogical fear, fear that our unbridled imagination creates, manipulates and magnifies.
The root of this fear resides within our thoughts, which for the most part lean towards catastrophe, doom and gloom.
We think that we have no control over it, that it is a mandatory concomitant of life, and because everyone suffers from it to varying degrees, we surrender to its vile nature by trying to coexist with it.
When fear gets unbearable, we try to get away from it through entertainment, alcohol, or any substance that promises to mitigate its destructive effects on us.
Thoughts are a continuous stream of flowing water, when we try to stop it, it slithers and slips from between our fingers.
We end up fatigued, bitter and distraught.
When we relax and surrender to the flow of the stream, we become part of it, we move with it without analysing its temperature or the colour of its water.
If we start thinking about the creatures lurking at the bottom of the stream, the poisonous nature of its water and we hold on to these thoughts instead of letting them be replaced with other random thoughts, we start feeling fear creep into our heart.
A big step towards a peaceful life is believing that the world around us is here to sustain us, by offering us a variety of food, by endowing us with an immune system that protects us and heals our bodies and by giving us a brain that allows us to solve our daily problems.
If left alone our thoughts, like the flowing water, will move along, leaving us unaffected by their random apparitions.
The more attention we give to our thoughts, the stronger they get, and the more resistance they offer when we try to dismiss them.
The root of this fear resides within our thoughts, which for the most part lean towards catastrophe, doom and gloom.
We think that we have no control over it, that it is a mandatory concomitant of life, and because everyone suffers from it to varying degrees, we surrender to its vile nature by trying to coexist with it.
When fear gets unbearable, we try to get away from it through entertainment, alcohol, or any substance that promises to mitigate its destructive effects on us.
Thoughts are a continuous stream of flowing water, when we try to stop it, it slithers and slips from between our fingers.
We end up fatigued, bitter and distraught.
When we relax and surrender to the flow of the stream, we become part of it, we move with it without analysing its temperature or the colour of its water.
If we start thinking about the creatures lurking at the bottom of the stream, the poisonous nature of its water and we hold on to these thoughts instead of letting them be replaced with other random thoughts, we start feeling fear creep into our heart.
A big step towards a peaceful life is believing that the world around us is here to sustain us, by offering us a variety of food, by endowing us with an immune system that protects us and heals our bodies and by giving us a brain that allows us to solve our daily problems.
If left alone our thoughts, like the flowing water, will move along, leaving us unaffected by their random apparitions.
The more attention we give to our thoughts, the stronger they get, and the more resistance they offer when we try to dismiss them.
We are not alone, left to our own devices. The universe didn't infuse us with life just to watch us suffer from its elevated platform, laughing and wringing its hands like a twisted demented tyrant.
In any environment a variety of sounds greet us and vie for our attention, the fridge's low hum, the creaking of unfamiliar floors, the squeaking of the window's hinges. These same sounds fade, absorbed into silence once they are starved of our attention.
In any environment a variety of sounds greet us and vie for our attention, the fridge's low hum, the creaking of unfamiliar floors, the squeaking of the window's hinges. These same sounds fade, absorbed into silence once they are starved of our attention.
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