Hi everyone, please find below the 7 Key Takeaways and a Practical Exercise from the book - "WHEN THINGS FALL APART" by Pema Chodron.
- Start your spiritual journey NOW. Buddhism offers an alternative way of looking at things and has profound life-changing potential.
- When everything falls apart, what do you do? Piercing pain can lead to becoming more kind, compassionate, and loving if we dare to leave the door open.
- What makes you suffer? Buddhists believe that samsara is the primary reason for human suffering. It's a hopeless cycle of seeking lasting pleasure or security and avoiding pain.
- Encountering fear and loneliness. Getting to know your fear is the only way to be fully present in life and stop falling into old behavior patterns.
- Why your death is a blessing. By relying on our hopes, we always live in the future and never embrace the present.
- Let go of control. Once we acknowledge that suffering is integral to our lives, we can start by changing our attitude toward it.
- Stop giving yourself a hard time. How we treat ourselves is essential to our spiritual awakening. Buddhists emphasize Maitri - the practice of growing a compassionate and kind attitude toward oneself.
Practical Exercise to Try out:
- Explore your relationship with loneliness. What do you usually do to distract yourself from it? Analyze your reaction and embrace this feeling rather than escape it.
- Impermanence is integral to being human. What are the little examples of impermanence in your life - daily, weekly, yearly?
- Try to introduce daily meditation practices. Start with just five minutes a day, noticing the thoughts and emotions arising. Acknowledge, let them go, and continue the practice.
- Spot your habitual patterns: how do you react to others and situations of uncertainty or doubt? Next time, act differently and see how it makes you feel.
Thank you very much for reading this post. If any of the key takeaways resonates with you, please feel free to comment the same.
