Trust (In Our Nature)

In this week’s Focus & Relax, I revisited a suggestion from the previous week: “You don’t have to be so in charge of your own body and feelings.”

I clarified that I meant this specifically in the context of meditation (though wider applications can, of course, be experimented with). We often feel such a corrective impulse when we meditate. We start to tinker with ourselves, trying to get more calm, more in control.

To not have to be so in charge of what arises in our mind and body is to develop trust in our nature – what Buddhists call our “Buddha nature.” Part of what gets worked on when we practice meditation over the long term is that we see we don’t constantly need to try and improve ourselves or be ashamed of ourselves. We aren’t defined by our problems.

As Chogyam Trungpa said, “Neurosis is temporary, sanity is permanent.” This can only be experienced through practice, not digested as an idea.