Carrying Our Own Stuff

 

From Chapter 2 ("Ordinary Mind") of Subtle Sound: The Zen Teachings of Maurine Stuart, on letting-go and not being The Fixer:

... we must each carry our own stuff, and grow and learn from it, and ripen. When we are sitting at the gate, if we are ripe, we will know when to offer help and when to allow the person to carry his or her own burden, do his or her own work. We are here to help one another, to support one another, but not to interfere, and not to take on someone else's pain or burden. We feel one another's pain, since we are of one body, one mind, but we must allow each other our own experience, and contribute in our own way.

(cf. Functional Thinking versus Ego Thinking (2014-11-01), Simple Mind (2015-09-16), Holding Space (2016-07-22), Sublime States (2017-01-05), ...) - ^z - 2017-01-17