Deborah Smith

The doors to the enlightened mind are reached through the following:

love, silence, acceptance, the present moment,

the feeling of aliveness, open awareness,

the mind with no thought, complete surrender.

“When the mind is at rest,

I see the moon rising and the wind blowing gently.

Then I realize that the world is not necessarily

an ocean of suffering.”

—
CAIGENTAN

is that we are unable to accept

the things that cannot be changed.

Let them be and see what happens.

So what should we do if we want to let something go? The answer is to accept ourselves just as we are. If we accept the struggling self, our state of mind will soon undergo a change, though it will be subtle at first. When we regard our difficult emotions as a problem, and try to overcome them, we only struggle more. In contrast, when we accept them, strangely

enough our mind stops struggling, and grows suddenly quiet. And when that happens, it becomes possible to leave our emotions behind and look at them warmly from the outside. Rather than trying to change or control difficult emotions from the inside, allow them to be there, and your mind will rest. When this happens, you can more easily detach yourself and look at your emotions calmly, as though they belong to someone else.

When our mind is quiet and we look at our emotions from the outside, something unexpected happens: We sense the loving presence of our inner silence, watching those emotions with composure. If you are religious, the inner silence may feel like the presence of God or another transcendental being. We thought we were struggling alone in the world, but in the stillness we

sense “the one” who is always with us, who looks at our mind with compassion. When things get especially difficult, some of us even purportedly hear words coming from the silence or from God, saying, “Things are so hard for you right now, but you will be okay no matter what.”

When we arrive at this point, we can sense some distance between our difficult emotions and ourselves, and no longer identify ourselves with these emotions. Then we can allow them to exist, since they don’t bother us as much.

DURING THE TIMES in your life when your inability to let something go leaves you feeling distressed, please don’t try to
fight it. Instead, allow it to be there, and then observe it without words. Your mind will soon become quiet and spacious, making it easier to live with your negative feelings. Then you may even see the eyes of compassion inside you that look on your inner wound with love. As this happens, your mind will realize that you are not the wound, but the deep silence that knows the
wound.

When you feel bad, don’t struggle with the feeling.

If you struggle to control it, you can make it worse.

However hard you might wish your feelings away,

they will stay for as long as they need to.

When you allow them to be there and watch them,

they usually leave earlier than you expected.