When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

“Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us.”

But getting old, getting sick, losing what we love—we don’t see those events as natural occurrences. We want to ward off that sense of death, no matter what.

The word desire encompasses that addiction quality, the way we grab for something because we want to find a way to make things okay. That

Often peace is taught as the fourth mark of existence. This isn’t the peace that’s the opposite of war. It’s the well-being that comes when we can see the infinite pairs of opposites as complementary.

That awareness is what turns the sword into a flower. It is how what is seemingly ugly and problematic and unwanted actually becomes our teacher.

Scrambling for security has never brought anything but momentary joy. It’s like changing the position of our legs in meditation. Our legs hurt from sitting cross-legged, so we move them. And then we feel, “Phew!

If we can look at and see the wildness of emotion, we can not only begin to befriend and soften toward ourselves, but we can also begin to befriend all human beings and indeed all living beings.

When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test for each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.