the alchemy we possess

Was reading Madiysn Taylor's Daily Om: Learning to Live and got inspired to reflect.

"Energy flows so much more readily in the presence of positivity and hopefulness."

It is like the acronym RAIN Tara Brach talks about as a useful tool for self-awareness. Recognize, allow, investigate and nurture. Nurture. Nothing can grow and be cultivated from a place of negativity, or critical and averting behavior.

"RAIN directly de-conditions the habitual ways in which you resist your moment-to-moment experience. It doesn’t matter whether you resist “what is” by lashing out in anger, by having a cigarette, or by getting immersed in obsessive thinking. Your attempt to control the life within and around you actually cuts you off from your own heart and from this living world. RAIN begins to undo these unconscious patterns as soon as we take the first step."

Like Rebecca out in the Buddhist Center in Westlake and Gen Kelsang Rigpa in Hollywood tells us in our meditation classes... patience and acceptance as pathways to inner peace and happiness. Patience undoes our delusions and origins our karma "how wonderful!." :) 

When we reject a situation or person or event, whether by criticism, aversion, by saying "no," getting upset... we suffer. When we patiently accept we are free from "delusions." That alchemy we possess to view the world in a positive light is empowering. We can train our mind (inner circumstances we have control over) to interact with our outer circumstances (we have no control over) and practice patience and acceptance. 

Like Geshe Kelsang Gyatso states in How to Solve Our Human Problems:

Paraphrasing..

"If something can be remedied there is no point to be unhappy. If something cannot be remedied, there is still no point in being unhappy."

Waking out of trance
Destroying our delusions 

Training our mind

Being mindful 

Being positive

Universal compassion 

Practicing RAIN

So many great tools and resources out there as a reminder to practice, train, and remember - it is possible to be free of negativity, it is possible to guard our inner peace and have an anvil like mind where harm cannot dent our positive state. Takes work, reactivity is laziness. Patience is power, patience takes bravery and tremendous control. 

I think it was Gen Kelsang Rigpa that said that we must practice training our mind to not just be happy but use that training as a form of protection from harm.

I like the poetry of Rumi for some grounding too..

"Learn the alchemy true human beings know. The moment you accept what troubles you've been given, the door will open. Welcome difficulty as a familiar comrade. Joke with torment brought by the friend. Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, then are taken off. That undressing and the beautiful naked body underneath is the sweetness that comes after grief. The hurt you embrace becomes joy. Call it to you where it can change. A silk worm eating leaves makes a cocoon. Each of us weaves a chamber of leaves and sticks. Silk worms begin to truly exist as they disappear inside that room. Without legs we fly. When I stop speaking, this poem will close and open its silent wings."