http://www.beliefnet.com/Health/2000/09/Suffering-Zen.aspx?p=1

A friend just posted the following on Facebook and I immediately thought of you and what possibly seems to be your condition of being an involuntary empath:

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. ~ Krishnamurti

May you find peace in any way you can. I find Byron Katie’s The Work to be very helpful for on the spot dismantling of thoughts or feelings caused by thoughts.

Love, Brigid

Your so-called hell
Is mind’s creation
What else can it be
It has to come from
Somewhere first

Mind torments us
With scenes of fire
But where else does
The fire come from
But from our mind

Mind turns us into
A nervous wreck
Scared to be struck
By the blow that
Comes from above

Mind smites itself
In life as a hedge
Bribing the saviour
Of the obsequious
To bestow mercy

May all beings be free of suffering.

DISCIPLINE IS NOT A BURDEN, SHENPA IS A BURDEN

…
Modern-day people are often faced with a tendency to depression, and this is despite having all the latest conveniences. I have concluded that most of our depression comes from a lack of even mundane discipline, never mind religious discipline. We are free to do whatever we like, yet we don’t even know where to begin or how to proceed. But you may find that even a simple discipline like tidying your room each day between 7:30 and 7:45 actually softens your chronic depression…

Near the end of the Uttaratantra, Lord Maitreya stresses that it is vital to hear and read as much as we can in order to gain access to the spiritual path. And furthermore, if we are serious followers of dharma, merely hearing and reading are not enough; we have to contemplate. And by contemplate I mean we have to determine whether this path is a suitable one, and whether we are able to follow it. We have to ask does this path make logical sense, or is it all just a big misunderstanding. Just because the Buddha supposedly said so, we cannot simply trust that what we hear is the truth. We have to analyse for ourselves if this path of dharma applies to us, and so contemplation is a must.

Suppose we have an hour to practise: the first fifteen minutes, we should listen to or read dharma; for the next fifteen minutes, we should contemplate, since hearing and contemplation deserve equal time; and for the last thirty minutes, we should practise meditation. If you are serious about following the path of dharma, you have to meditate. To hear and contemplate but not meditate is like reading the menu over and over but never ordering; what is the point? You must meditate. And what is meditation? Meditation is remaining completely and one-pointedly with our sure confidence in the dharma, which we gain from hearing and contemplation. More about that later.

(God that sounds horrible, sorry folks.)

And coming back to this thread reminds me that I’d always wanted to thank you for your post of March 31. That was the beginning of an especially dark period which I am still in. But your advice there is great. There are a couple of those I need to follow a lot more than I do–especially number 1 I think…

The only thing I can say is that somewhere in the depths of my experience there is some kind of knowledge of insubstantiality, and also the power of mind. Even though I can rarely contact that power at this point, and even though fear and grief are so strong and I often simply feel condemned, I know that that feeling just doesn’t make any sense from the standpoint of dharma.

I will definitely send prayers and aspirations out to you. Recently the death of a beloved dog that I know got me back to sitting a little for the first time in a very long while. Right before bed. I am trying to keep it up. Managed it for a week, then fell off again. I know it’s good to do, even necessary to do. And I think it even helped my sleep a little (which is a major disaster area). Sitting was impossible for the longest time because it has been associated for many years with the experience of humiliation and condemnation, emanating from my time in SI. Those feelings are still there. I avoided them for the week I sat solely because my focus was on this beautiful, beautiful dog with such a pure heart, who gave so very much to his human companion.

I too send cool spaciousness to you, in the deep wish that things shift for you very soon. Become a little softer, enabling you to contact that ground of peace that all the wisest people from every tradition assure us is there. And I also wish for you some true joy, because we need this too.

All good!