The Negative Teaching of Life · Face Your Truths & Conditions
⁘ “Every low tide and season of gloom. Every shock and jolt and catastrophe. These teach you something about what is. They show you your reactivity. They show you where you cling, how you condition yourself. Study it all. In facing it, you reflect on the truth of yourself — and the ideas that condition you. Take it as it comes. Shadows and light, sunshine and downpours. Let presence and absence teach you of the fullness of what you actually are — of what reality is.”
Every low tide and season of gloom,
every shock and jolt and catastrophe.
These teach you something about what is,
and they show you your reactivity.
Every outcome you deem negative shows you where you cling,
shows you how you condition yourself
to the environment, inner and outer.
Study it.
When do you ever study the positive side of your life?
The good things coming your way,
you just leap at it like a hungry goblin,
devouring and devouring,
mesmerized in your illusion.
How wonderful, precious, then,
the negative side of life.
You will not leap into it,
you are forced to face it.
And in facing it,
you are reflecting on the truth of yourself
and reality as it presents itself before you.
Is it even reality – or am I responding to my ideas?
Is all the negativity my own creation?
And indeed, much of it is.
When you have crafted particular ideals that must hold.
Anything else is unacceptable.
Or we could just realize
the meaninglessness and hollowness of
trying to curate our reality
to a particular positive preference.
Take it as it comes.
Shadows and light, sunshine and downpours.
Let presence and absence be your teachers and guides
into the fullness of what you actually are,
what reality is.