(no subject)
Pema Chödron says that bodhicitta, "awakened mind," is our soft, wounded heart, the thing that happens when you're disappointed or let down or frustrated or upset or angry. It's not those feelings per se, but the agitation that ensues from them, the sense we try to repress that things are somehow fundamentally not okay.
Generally we (I) pretend that things are okay, we live in magical fantasyland adventures until some tiny part of reality breaks in to ruin the whole scene. At that point it's our choice--we can wrap our heads even deeper inside the fiction, or we can take the temporarily far more painful step of seeing that pain and suffering are an inevitable consequence of living, that you don't always get what you want, even (or especially) if you think you deserve it; that it's far more pleasant but ultimately pointless to pretend that life is beautiful and we can be happy every minute of every day. We can't, that's just not how it is.
And man, I'm nothing, I'm nobody and don't let me or anyone else tell you otherwise. All the same in my experience being woken up functions exactly like it sounds: it's painful and it sucks and there you are lying in your bed, happily dozing away, and here comes the bucket of cold water to infringe on your peaceful existence and terminate naptime. Being angry or upset isn't anyone's business but your own, it's not a matter of someone or something else changing to suit your desires but of recognizing where your desires come from, how and where they're unrealistic and the ways in which they really only stem from your ego. The word for "pride" in Tibetan is nga-gyal, 'me-victor(ious),' which I think is great: the enemy is pride, our own (my own, God, my own) tendency to try to win out over people or circumstances. Letting go or waking up or whatever doesn't make pain any less painful, it just means that you're allowing yourself to experience it as pain instead of making up some story line ("it's all her fault!") where you emerge victorious and the pain you experience, as well as the negative emotions it brings up, isn't really your problem.
Generally we (I) pretend that things are okay, we live in magical fantasyland adventures until some tiny part of reality breaks in to ruin the whole scene. At that point it's our choice--we can wrap our heads even deeper inside the fiction, or we can take the temporarily far more painful step of seeing that pain and suffering are an inevitable consequence of living, that you don't always get what you want, even (or especially) if you think you deserve it; that it's far more pleasant but ultimately pointless to pretend that life is beautiful and we can be happy every minute of every day. We can't, that's just not how it is.
And man, I'm nothing, I'm nobody and don't let me or anyone else tell you otherwise. All the same in my experience being woken up functions exactly like it sounds: it's painful and it sucks and there you are lying in your bed, happily dozing away, and here comes the bucket of cold water to infringe on your peaceful existence and terminate naptime. Being angry or upset isn't anyone's business but your own, it's not a matter of someone or something else changing to suit your desires but of recognizing where your desires come from, how and where they're unrealistic and the ways in which they really only stem from your ego. The word for "pride" in Tibetan is nga-gyal, 'me-victor(ious),' which I think is great: the enemy is pride, our own (my own, God, my own) tendency to try to win out over people or circumstances. Letting go or waking up or whatever doesn't make pain any less painful, it just means that you're allowing yourself to experience it as pain instead of making up some story line ("it's all her fault!") where you emerge victorious and the pain you experience, as well as the negative emotions it brings up, isn't really your problem.