Every day is an opportunity to grow, to develop. When this is clear to me, when it is in the forefront – life is a challenge, an adventure.. There is so much we can do with the days blank canvas to develop ourselves. But we don’t do that instead we are mechanical, on automatic pilot. We spend so much valuable time worrying or afraid, limiting ourselves. Doing the same things, having the same feelings and hoping that it will change.
Perhaps the most common mechanical manifestation is the role of the victim. We tell ourselves that things are happening to us, that its not us creating them, or allowing them – either things are just happening that we can’t do anything about -or things we want to happen just can’t.
The historical Buddha was a lifehacker. Lost Coin is part of his hacker lineage. Shakyamuni Buddha – I like to think of him as Sam to underline that he was just like you and me (the ancient teachers in our lineage said when you say the word Buddha you should wash your mouth out with soap). So Sam took on an incredible set of problems – old age, desease and death and he tried to hack them with all the available means. Eventually he succeeded with a combination of zazen and a method of practice called the eightfold path. But he had to really decide to do it and that he could do it.
The amazing thing is that even if we have been afraid, procrastinating or being the victim it can all change in one moment. We are capable of a complete shift and then what we need is to practice, hack the mechanical patterns – the defaults. Today would be a good day to make that shift. It takes one bold step. That step always happens now.
photo credit: country_boy_shane
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