Change is blowing in the wind. Several directions are being travelled at the same time and the time has come to evaluate where I am, what I want, and how I am going to proceed. I, and those around me, have sacrificed and compromised so much to achieve my goals such that I have allowed guilt and my sense of responsibility to dictate my life for as long as I can remember. I find myself asking - Is a life of compromise a life well lived? Obviously if I am asking such a question . .A life without encumbrance is a life of simplicity and balance. When I am unencumbered my decisions are sound and not influenced by manipulation and deceit. To do what one believes as opposed to what one feels is expected is the purest form of freedom and integrity. Paths converge and diverge, this is life and must be accepted. An unencumbered mind accepts this and knows when to fight and when to move on. If I am unencumbered I am assured that my wants are only dictated by my needs and thus my thoughts and words are perfectly mirrored by my actions.
The Eightfold Path continues to elude me. I have almost fully grasped the wisdom and ethical conduct aspects of this philosophy but the mental development portion is lacking. When I am truly unencumbered my cup will be empty and I will have a chance of mastering right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
“One should rather die than be betrayed. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised. Betrayal, though - betrayal is the willful slaughter of hope.” - Steven Deitz (b. 1958)
3 comments:
This blog has made an impression on me, and the quote is very fitting.
Sifu Wilson
This reminds me of that Jet Li movie, with probably a few names but the one I remember is Twin Warrior, where he becomes crazy and understands taiji: in the moment the man he was watching dropped his bundle of sticks when another man told him, "make light your burden."
And yet life with encumberances is exciting and rich with the the influences of many other personalities, the needs and expectations of others in our life and yes our guilt, our anger and our love.
The belief you speak of is moulded and influenced by all those encumberances. Yes to letting some of it go but see the value that they (the encumberances) have brought to your life as well.
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