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June 15 - June 24, 2022
fear of pain does more harm than pain itself,
“contemplate impermanence.”
“It’s not events that upset us but our judgments about events.”
It’s important to remember that whether we view something as helpful or harmful depends entirely upon our goals.
Realizing that fear of pain may be doing you more harm than the pain itself can motivate you to start regularly practicing the psychological skills required to overcome intolerance of pain and discomfort.
By viewing things objectively, isolating the present moment and dividing it into smaller parts, we can tackle them one at a time, using the method we’ve called depreciation by analysis.
Let the affected part of the body complain if it must, he says. The mind doesn’t need to agree and go along with it by judging the sensation to be very bad and harmful.
The paradox of accepting discomfort is that it often leads to less suffering.
Struggling against things we can’t control does us more harm than good.
anyone can endure great pain and hardship if they are sufficiently motivated to do so.
He controls his aim but not the arrow’s flight.
his goal is to do what’s within his sphere of control to the best of his ability while remaining somewhat aloof from the outcome.
Nothing is entirely under your control, except your own volition.
Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
remove the shock from certain interactions
anxiety tends to abate naturally during prolonged exposure to feared situations, under normal conditions.
the contemplation of impermanence.
“It’s not things that upset me but my judgments about them.”
If no one ever tested your patience, then you’d lack an opportunity to exhibit virtue in your relationships.
“There are wicked men—they are useful to thee; without them, what need would there be for virtues?”
“It seemed right to him.”
When you point your finger in anger at someone else, remember that three fingers on the same hand point back in your own direction.
You should always remain open to the possibility that the other person’s intentions are not in the wrong.
Other people can harm your property or even your body, but they can’t harm your character unless you allow them to do so.
Anger about perceived slights does us more harm than the slights themselves in an even more fundamental sense,
let it go
anger does the most harm to the person experiencing it,
the wise man who views the world rationally is never surprised by anything in life.
The wise man accepts his pain, endures it, but does not add to it.
Alexander the Great and his mule driver both reduced to dust, made equals at last by death.
Every era of history teaches us the same lesson: nothing lasts forever.
It’s vanity to worry about how history will record your actions.
