Hi, since my reply to you I’ve thought of something else that might be useful to add.
A lot of people seem to experience things as getting more difficult once they start out on the spiritual path. It seems as though they are more surrounded my difficult people, that their mental states are getting worse, and that they experience more obstacles in life.
Awareness can lead to more suffering
Oftentimes, the reason why that appears to be that way is because once we enter the path, we become more aware. We cultivate awareness and sensitivity to our own mental states, and to our relationships with other people and the world. And in doing so, we become more aware of the suffering nature of things. Things are not as we wish them to be …. and in experiencing things more clearly, we can often suffer more.
However, as we develop more compassion and develop our view and our realisations, that increase in suffering will lesson over time ….
So again, hang in there, keep on doing the right thing, and trust that things will resolve in a positive direction 🙂
Yes, of course i exist. I am made up of molecules. And blood flows through my veins.
When you say ‘of course’ .. why is that? … What do the teachings say about this? What do the dharma teachings say about whether you exist, and in what way? Whether the early Hinayana teachings, Mahayana, or Vajrayana, they all seem to point in the same direction with this.
It seems to me that understanding this, and realising for oneself is the key to resolving the difficulties you experience with spirits, and indeed all other difficulties too 🙂
I wonder if you can see where I am leading?
Woman by the Window print by Hilary Rosen
Perhaps using Feng Shui or other methods to clean the room of evil spirits would be the best method?
Thank you for sharing your reflections on this. Perhaps I could add another approach?
Sometimes one can look at peace as being the absence of that which we don’t like, or find attractive, or acceptable. And so we try to attain peace by changing the conditions in our lives so that we are surrounded by more conducive and attractive things and conditions and experiences. And then we hope to be more at peace. But much of the Buddha’s teachings are directed at finding peace in another way.
Letting go can be the doorway to peace
They point at opening and accepting how things are, and not trying to change things in order to make things a certain way, in order to be happy. So if we can truly open to things, however they are, whether they are things we like or dislike, find pleasant or unpleasant, then we can be at peace with them. And at peace with ourselves, so to speak.
So, however the world is, at any time, we are at peace, as we have stopped trying to change the world (or ourselves) in order to find peace and happiness, and we’ve arrived at the peace that was right under our nose. We have just let go of the struggle with life, trying to make it a certain way, and opened out into what always has been.
Letting go itself can be the door to peace, a peace that is not dependent on conditions being a certain way. People or other beings can be however they wish to be, and we can still be at peace.
I hope these reflections may be in some way helpful to you ….
Hi, I just wanted to add one thing to your very beautiful email, which detailed why people act the way that they do, and the various ways in which you can work with the situation you find yourself in.
Your present is a reflection of your past mind
The teachings say that what we experience is the result of our past actions. To that end, when you ask why you experience what you do, and whether it is a reflection of one’s own mind, I guess you could say that it is in particular a reflection of your own past mind. By which I mean that your mind in the past, whether in this life, or previous lives, has acted in many ways which have resulted in the situations you now find yourself in.
So in that way, they are not the result of what currently are, more to do with your past. In that way, they are not a reason to blame yourself for what you find yourself in, despite all your good intentions and actions now. Furthermore, ultimately these things are not real, they are merely appearances to your mind, the play of mind itself.
Karma Painting by Danittza Zimic
Relative and ultimate perspectives
So speaking relatively, as we focus on doing good actions now, our experience of the world will gradually change.
And speaking ultimately, all dharmas are ‘same taste’, all the play of luminous emptiness, without ‘good’ or ‘bad.
There are many ways to ‘handle’ our experience, as your email outlined, and to which I’ve added slightly to. The trick seems to be to find the angles which work for you, and just keep on ‘doing the right thing’ …..
Very best wishes to you in the Dharma, and wishing your obstacles and difficulties dissolve before you …..
