Tricycle magazine recently shared a thoughtful excerpt from Being Zen, a 2002 book by Ezra Bayda, that suggests a checklist of reminders for use "when the clarity of practice becomes obscured by the dark and swirling energy of emotional distress":

• awaken aspiration — "remember to practice ... see our particular distress as our path ... view distress as our opportunity to see and to open ..."
• awaken curiosity — "know the truth of the moment ... return over and over again to the bodily experience of the moment, to the physical 'whatness' of our experience, which is movable, light, and workable ..."
• awaken humor — "Any time we're obsessing over something that's happening mainly in our thoughts, it is helpful to remember Mark Twain's words: 'I'm a very old man. I've had lots of problems. Most of them never happened.' ..." (misattributed to Twain, according to researchers)
• awaken lovingkindness — "bring nonjudgmental awareness from the heart to the unwanted aspects of 'me' ... soften our self-judgment with lovingkindness ... not trying to do or change anything ... simply allowing our heart center to become a wider container of awareness within which to experience distress ..."

Bayda concludes, "We see that our emotional drama, however distressful, is still just thoughts, just memories, just sensations. Who we really are—our basic connectedness—is so much bigger than just this body, just this personal drama."

(cf. Karma (2009-07-15), Without Effort, Analysis, or Expectation (2010-08-04), Ceaseless Society (2012-05-10), Do Your Usual Practice (2013-09-15), 01 (2013-11-05), ...) - ^z - 2014-03-26