The 14th Dalai Lama and spiritual leader of Tibet has said:
“When you think everything is someone else’s fault, you will suffer a lot. When you realize that everything springs only from yourself, you will learn both peace and joy.” – Dalai Lama
How many times are we quick to perceive that someone or something is to blame for our misfortune? How many times are we quick to make a judgement about someone else, especially in our perception of that person in relation to us? How many times do we linger in our suffering, or treasure a wound?
It is in our nature to focus on these things because of our negative bias. In order to keep ourselves safe from danger, we catalogue the wrong doings, the painful experiences; we are attuned to the hurt so as to avoid them again in the future.
Yet it is also in our nature to seek peace. We desire to feel calm, content. We have an inherent pull to forgive; to let go of the suffering and feel its release from the weighted space it has taken up in our hearts.
If we understand the Dalai Lama’s wise words, we recognize that we can hang on to the hurt and linger in our misery as to what has wronged us or we can move towards peace through forgiveness. The choice is ours. 🙂
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