The Trauma of Everyday Life

Pleasure is not the problem, the Buddha taught: Attachment is.

“a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream,”

Do not grasp after the pleasant or push away the unpleasant, but give equal attention to everything there is to observe, taught the Buddha.

Our humanity resides in our feelings, and we reclaim our humanity when we direct our curiosity at that which we would prefer to avoid.

In his careful elucidation of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, he established the means by which implicit memories can be converted to narrative ones.

All that is subject to arising is subject to

“Body exposed in the golden

“There is no self apart from the world.”

“It is a joy to be hidden,” wrote Winnicott of the struggles of such children, “but disaster not to be found.”