Hi. I’m rushing around trying to get everything done because I’m unexpectedly going to be out of the office for a few days. In the midst of my craze, the excerpt below landed my email box. I really needed the reminder that all my joy is from within, anytime I want to access it. (For me that means NOW — not, as Monkey Mind would like me to believe, when I cross everything off my to-do list. ) Hope it strikes the right note for you, too.
This is from the book Trying To Be Human written by American Zen Teacher Cheri Huber and published by Keep It Simple Books. (Copyright Cheri Huber).
Americans have had the unique experience of getting everything that is supposed to make them happy and finding out it doesn’t. When that happens, you figure maybe there’s something else to life than just getting what you want all the time.
That something else is finding the joy within oneself, rather than as a result of life circumstances. Life circumstances are always liable to change. If I depend on externals for my well-being, then I am bound to be a victim. But if my well-being comes from within, it does not matter what is going on anywhere else. Each time something happens in a way that doesn’t please me, that is my best opportunity to let go of that process of suffering and come back to being with what is.
(ahhhh.)