Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness

by Mark Epstein

“All beings are seeking happiness,” he said. “It is the purpose of life.”

Completion comes not from adding another piece to ourselves but from surrendering our ideas of perfection.

When I was first learning about Buddhist meditation I remember becoming inescapably aware of how much tension I was carrying in my shoulders.

GUILTY!!!

After several minutes of this, which was actually very moving for me, Ram Dass broke the silence with a few words of his own. “Are you in there?” he asked. “I’m in here,” he added, pointing to himself. Then, smiling, he said in the vernacular of the day, “Far out.”

Rather than learning how to be tolerant of difficult feelings, many of us have learned only to avoid them.

Ugh. So guilty of this.