All quotes from
Pema's book
Every day we could think about the aggression in the world, in New
York, Los Angeles, Halifax, Taiwan, Beirut, Kuwait, Somalia, Iraq,
everywhere. All over the world,
everybody always strikes out at the enemy, and the pain escalates forever. Every day we could reflect on this and ask
ourselves, “Am I going to add to the aggression in the world?” Every day, at the moment when things get edgy,
we can just ask ourselves, “Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to
war?”
What we habitually regard as obstacles are not really our enemies,
but rather our friends. What we call
obstacles are really the way the world and our entire experience teach us where
we’re stuck.
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be
continually thrown out of the nest. To
live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as
completely new and fresh. To live is to
be willing to die over and over again.
From the awakened point of view, that’s life. Death is wanting to hold on to what you have
and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel
completely together.
