When we are willing to accept our experience, just as it is, a strange thing happens: it changes into something else. When we avoid pain, struggle not to feel it, pain turns into suffering. Brenda Shoshanna More Quotes by Brenda Shoshanna More Quotes From Brenda Shoshanna Unless we base our sense of identity upon the truth of who we are, it is impossible to attain true happiness. Brenda Shoshanna who-we-are identity impossible Whatever we can't love or accept in another, is a mirror of something we can't love or accept in ourselves. Brenda Shoshanna self-love mirrors love Another simple and powerful way to dissolve problems is not to dwell upon the outcome of your actions. Instead, learn to value each action (no matter how small or large), to do it with complete attention. Your joy and satisfaction comes from doing each action with a whole heart and mind. Results and consequences then take care of themselves. When you are not absorbed by concern for outcomes, how much anxiety can you ever have? Brenda Shoshanna learning powerful heart When we sit, we open our own treasure house. Rather than do this, however, most of us first seek to find the treasures another person can provide. We calculate their value to us. When we approach relationships in this manner, we are coming as beggars, seeing the other as a source of supply. When we can enter a relationship with our treasure house already open, there is no end to the wonders we can find, both within and between ourselves and another. Brenda Shoshanna treasure house relationship Consider for a moment what you pay attention to all day long. What seems important to you, what do you take for granted and hardly attend to at all? Write it down. Do not judge your answers. Be honest and simple. As you keep track all week long, you'll be amazed at what claims your attention, what you give your precious life force to. Brenda Shoshanna honesty simple writing What seems good turns bad, what seems bad turns good. It is an endless cycle. Brenda Shoshanna endless turns seems Change is the very basis of our life, not to be fought, to be welcomed and tasted, to be seen for the gift it truly is. Brenda Shoshanna our-lives bases change The best defense against being hurt is to feel good about yourself and the way a person responds to you says more about them, than about you. Brenda Shoshanna feel-good hurt feelings Now today, moment by moment, realize that each person and event that happens is life for you. Life is not somewhere else. See how fully you can accept the life that presents itself to you now. Brenda Shoshanna events somewhere-else today Relying on another is an expression of attachment, not love, a manifestation of insecurity and suffering, not understanding the true nature of our lives. Brenda Shoshanna attachment nature love All the insight we will ever need to live well will come from fully being who and where we are. Brenda Shoshanna who-we-are insight needs We create a mask to meet the masks of others. Then we wonder why we cannot love, and why we feel so alone. Brenda Shoshanna mask wonder love All conflict we experience in the world, is a conflict within our own selves. Brenda Shoshanna experience self world In a relationship if you are giving and getting nothing back in return, stop giving so much, and spend time being. Give to yourself, be who you are. Brenda Shoshanna time relationship giving We turn pain into suffering by adding on all kinds of beliefs, interpretations and judgments to it. Brenda Shoshanna pain belief suffering If one's sense of self is obtained through the eyes of another it is always subject to being lost. Brenda Shoshanna eye self lost The sense that my world is stable and stationary, that change will never come and that all will go on continuously as it is, is the nature of all delusion. Brenda Shoshanna nature change goes-on Zen practice asks you not to worry about who you 'should' become. Find out who you are right now. Brenda Shoshanna should practice worry Who you are is always enough. If your partner wants something different, it does not reflect upon you, but upon their needs and fantasies. Brenda Shoshanna want-something different doe A time of uncertainty, of not knowing exactly where we're headed, or what kind of choice to make is a Zen moment. Brenda Shoshanna choices knowing time
