Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child

So we have to work it out, to transform our suffering, to bring about our insight and compassion in order to help them later on. With that kind of attitude, that kind of understanding, we don’t suffer anymore because we now have insight and compassion.

We’d like to run away from ill-being and go in the direction of well-being. But it is there, in the place of ill-being, that we can find well-being. If we run away from ill-being, we have much less chance of finding well-being.

This practice is not a practice for ourselves alone, but for numberless generations of ancestors and descendants.

All kinds of desires are the continuation of our original desire to be safe. The little child in us continues to worry and be fearful. In the present moment there’s no problem, no threat. If we don’t have a problem in the present moment, it means we don’t have a problem.

Brushing our teeth, cooking our breakfast, walking to the meditation hall, everything we do, every step, every breath should bring joy and happiness to us.

Whenever a seed, say the seed of anger, comes up into our living room and manifests as a mental formation, the first thing we can do is to touch the seed of mindfulness and invite it to come up too. Now we have two mental formations in the living room. This is mindfulness of anger.

Washing a dish can be an act of enlightenment. It’s delightful to wash the dishes!

How do we bring about the feelings of joy and happiness that we need in order to be strong enough to deal with our suffering? The first thing to do is to release, to let go. Joy is born from letting go, leaving behind.

Within the seed of mindfulness is the seed of concentration. With these two energies, we can liberate ourselves from afflictions.