Taking Things Personally

View from Madison Square Park on 10/29/16. NYC has some amazing buildings!

Yoga Friends,

 I don't know about you, but I am very sensitive. When criticized, I tend to take things personally. So, it was particularly helpful recently for me to remember these words from Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction practice. In an interview with Krista Tippett, he said:

If you mistake what you think of as the reality for the reality, then you're going to suffer because you're attaching the story of me, myself, and my successes and failures to something that's actually quite impersonal.

If yoga and meditation has helped me in any tangible way, it has been as vehicles which allows me to step back and see what's happening rather than identifying with what's happening. A goal of yoga and meditation is to try to become the witness to everything that's going on, both inside and outside of ourselves. And it can make such a difference in the quality of our Joys and the diminishing of our suffering.

The Buddha said, "life is suffering." The Buddha also said that there is a Pathway out of suffering. 

May you remember you not take it personally.
May your suffering diminish, ... for the benefit of all beings.

aloha, with metta,
Paul