Times of crisis 33 – being positive

The easy way to be happy, even during a time of crisis, can seem to be to stay positive and just push everything negative, inner or outer, out of our way. But times when there is a real problem can teach us a useful lesson that this doesn’t work so well – we can see that this is like pushing a heavy swing door out of our way and not walking on – it swings back right into our face! More inwardly, if we do not listen to the real alarm bells built into our bodies and minds they will keep ringing, more and more insistently to warn us of all the problems we are trying to ignore. In more usual circumstances, where the problems are less in-our-face, we can realise that the same dynamic is working in a more subtle way. We will just be prone to anxiety. We can even end up going to the psychologist to ‘work with this stuff’ and try to be even more positive, but we never find any long-lasting peace. Peace comes from acknowledging the down-side of life with a calm, accepting heart not by just trying to push it away.

In the worst case the positivist will build a wonderful world for themselves, and set themselves up for a rude awakening – for all this positive stuff, even when it is completely real, doesn’t last forever. The good news is that the down-side doesn’t last either and that it is at the fading of suffering that we find a fuller, lasting happiness. We just need to have the courage and strength to consciously face the down-side without becoming negative and we will find not only a new, more real, more stable kind of happiness we will also have a true refuge from the down-side of life, one that can acknowledge and deal with real problems.

​I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk