This Being Human is a Guest House

The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.

This being human is a guest house. Every day a new arrival - a sorrow or pain. Welcome them all at the door. Greet them and Invite them in! (shortened poem by Rumi).

My friend had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Since then I felt anxiety. It was as if the universe has thrown a bunch of fresh smelly shit into my face and said: "See Alex, life is not only about fun! Deal with it!

As a reaction To this traumatic event i suddently had this random stingy pain in my arms and legs and I also encountered these horrible nightmares in which I was diagnosed with all these horrible diseases. Every each of this nightmares increased my dis-ease and my resistance to what is so obvious: We will all suffer pain and will all die sooner or later.

"What about Children?" ,my mind said in a desperate attempt to grab hold of a safety strategy. I need to have children. That will give me comfort and lessen my suffering when I'm old and fragile. That will make it easier! Another day my mind said: "If I will eat very healthy from now on, I will suffer less when I'm old!" I thanked my mind kindly for each of these suggestions.

And I did look better after myself from that point on - physically and mentally. I started eating more beans and lentils and also started practicing more loving kindness meditation and felt more and more compassion for myself and some kind of forgiveness.

Never the less I had to realise that unless we truly accept the shit the universe daily throws into our faces, we will always resist the natural human pain and thus increase our suffering. Tara Brach writes in her beautiful book ,Radical self acceptance: "The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.".

This morning I woke up and again felt pain in my body. I felt exhausted of resisting it and started rubbing my feet in a very loving way and said to my feet: "it's okay if you are not perfect and even if you guys hurt a little bit, I accept you. In that moment I felt true acceptance and surrender for the first time in my life. It was a feeling of expansion and softness in my chest and my fear lessened.

I looked outside and realized that it was a beautiful, sunny day. I grabbed my blanket and walked over to the park and sat under my favourite tree. I closed my eyes and started repeating my mantra: "The boundary to what we can accept it the boundary to our freedom." Every time i said the words I thought of a person or a situation or anything else that I am unaccepting of. And with every sentence I felt more peace. Of course my mind had it's own way to deal with this situation and dropped sentences such as: "Alex, now you have gone mad, sitting like a hippie in the park and repeating a sentence!" or "this will so not work, don't waste your time! Better go home and clean up your apartment!" I again thanked my mind for its opinions amd suggestions and mindfully returned To my sentence..

After a while a big fat cloud passed in front of the sun and i felt the a cold breeze on my check. My mind wasn't happy about that. I observed the urge arising in my body to open my eyes and check on the cloud: How big was it, how fast was it moving? Basically: when will this fucking cloud be gone and I will be able to feel the comfortable sun again? I just had to open my eyes and check. And I did.

Once i had checked all aspects of the cloud and had calculated how long it would take for it to pass, i realized how my eyes immediatly wandered away from that very cloud in oder to check for more potential clouds wanderung into the suns direction.

I realized that while meditating and contemplating on acceptance i had not even accepted the clouds above my head. I had contemplated about non-resistance And was resisting a cloud!

Having realized that i started laughing and once more realized my sooo human nature with all its sooo human conditioned tendencies.

I put my hand on my heart, started smiling and felt so much compassion for this my being human and all other humans and animals whose biggest wish it To be happy and free from suffering. - and now I will get up and go clean my apartment ;)