A New Earth

The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.

will help the child to disidentify from the pain?body. You may also want to talk to the child about your own pain?body using the child's terminology. The next time the child gets taken over by the pain?body, you can say, It's come back, hasn't it? Use whatever words the child used when you talk bout it. Direct the child's attention to what it feels like. Let your attitude be one of interest or curiosity rather than one of criticism or condemnation.

The quicker you are in attaching verbal or mental labels to things, people, or situations, the more shallow and lifeless your reality becomes, and the more deadened you become to reality, the miracle of life that continuously unfolds within and around you. In this way, cleverness may be gained, but wisdom is lost, and so are joy, love, creativity, and aliveness. They are concealed in the still gap between the perception and the interpretation. Of course we have to use words and thoughts. They have their own beauty but do we need to become imprisoned in them?

sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence

dukkha, and it will manifest in every situation sooner or later.

According to the Buddha, the human mind in its normal state generates dukkha, which can be translated as suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or just plain misery. He sees it as a characteristic of the human condition. Wherever you go, whatever you do, says the Buddha, you will encounter

If you can neither enjoy or bring acceptance to what you do stop. Otherwise, you are not taking responsibility for the only thing you can really take responsibility for, which also happens to be one thing that really matters: your state of consciousness. And if you are not taking responsibility for your state of consciousness, you are not taking responsibility for life.

To be aware of little, quiet things, however, you need to be quiet inside

You can participate in the dance of creation and be active without attachment to outcome and without placing unreasonable demands upon the world: Fulfill me, make me

happy, make me feel safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self?created suffering comes to an end.

Not projecting the old emotion into situations means facing it directly within yourself. It may not be pleasant, but it won't kill you.