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Your Life Doesn’t Have To Feel Like a Battle
If you have not tamed the enemy of your own anger
Combating outer opponents will only make them multiply.
Therefore, with an army of loving kindness and compassion,
To tame your own mind is the practice of a Bodhisattva.
- Ngulchu Thogme
When I was young I had an alarm clock shaped like a Japanese samurai, with a sword in its hand and a clock in its belly. For the ten years it lasted I would wake up every morning with the sound of a warrior yelling in Japanese, “Wake up! Wake up! It is time for the battle!”
For many of us life does feel like a battle. Our first instinct in the morning is one of self-protection, wanting to burrow back under the covers instead of facing the day. This is because we often view our daily routine as just a way to get by in life, pay the bills, try and find a connection with another human being, maintain our friendships, our family life, and at the end of it all we are nothing but exhausted by the struggle to keep it all together.
We spend so much energy constantly trying to keep up with voicemail, e-mail, junk mail, bill mail, females or males. Instead of engaging these various aspects of our life with an open mind we schlep our way through them and cling to our escapes: we might chew our…
