I always find value in the daily quotes sent out by Tricycle, but sometimes one comes down the pike that really encapsulates and validates my experience. And in this case, I appreciate the validation and comforting because losing your (old) mind is often excruciating. It really helps to be reassured that, despite the chaos, I am moving towards more depth, wholeness and life.


July 4, 2008
Tricycle's Daily Dharma

Those Fireworks in Your Head? Not a Problem

Somewhere in this process, you will come face to face with the sudden and shocking realization that you are completely crazy. Your mind is a shrieking, gibbering madhouse on wheels barreling pell-mell down the hill, utterly out of control and hopeless. No problem. You are not crazier than you were yesterday. It has always been this way, and you just never noticed. You also are no crazier than anybody else around you. The real difference is that you have confronted the situation; they have not. So they still feel relatively comfortable. That does not mean that they are better off. Ignorance may be bliss, but it does not lead to Liberation. So don’t let this realization unsettle you. It is a milestone actually, a sign of real progress. The very fact that you have looked at the problem straight in the eye means that you are on your way up and out of it.


-Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English