Category Archives: Pema Chödrön

Three Truths and One Wish

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1. Truth: Some issues cannot be solved through abstinence. I offer up myself and my “life-rehab” as a specific example of this.  The difficulties I am currently working with are that I have been in a long term abusive relationship, with myself, and need to learn how to relate to myself differently, to heal that relationship.  Also, as I mentioned just the other day, I have a damaged and distorted relationship with food.  In both cases, I cannot simply abstain.  I can’t abstain from eating or relating to myself. I would die.

by Hugh MacLeod

2. Truth: Difficulties such as these require continued effort and sustained practice. You have to keep trying, keep showing up and doing the work, practice, and even start over when necessary, stay with it, and ask for help. “To stay, you have to believe there is something worth staying for…and then you have to bring yourself back, again and again,” Geneen Roth.

by Hugh MacLeod

3. Truth: Things are workable, and you already have what it will take to succeed. You have basic, innate kindness and wisdom.  You know who you are.

“In Buddhist teachings, as well as in the teachings of many other contemplative or mystical traditions, the basic view is that people are fundamentally good and healthy. It’s as if everyone who has ever been born has the same birthright, which is enormous potential of warm heart and clear mind. The ground of renunciation is realizing that we already have exactly what we need, that what we have already is good. Every moment of time has enormous energy in it, and we could connect with that.” ~Pema Chödrön

by Hugh MacLeod

One wish: I wish you, all of us, the joy that comes with this hard work, of being who we are, of loving who we are, all the messy and stinky and beautiful bits. Our difficulties aren’t something to rush through or get over or past, but rather they are our life, they are living. Despair and even happiness are simply the weather and our basic goodness the sun, always there even when we can’t see it.

“It doesn’t matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn’t matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years — we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.” ~Sharon Salzberg

by Hugh MacLeod

  • Okay, it’s your turn. Speak your truths and make a wish.

Wishcasting Wednesday

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Monday here at A Thousand Shades of Gray is “Something Good,” Tuesday is “Three Truths and One Wish,” and now Wednesday is “Wishcasting.” This is something I first read about on my heART Exchange art swap partner’s blog, Dryada Journals. When I followed the link to the site of origin, I realized it was Jamie Ridler, a creative living coach whose work I had already admired–just another case of synchronicity, auspicious connection, the universe saying “yes.”

Jamie started a blog devoted to wishcasting and made her first post there on February 14, 2007–Valentine’s Day. On her current website, Jamie Ridler Studios, she’s continued the practice.  She describes it this way, “What would happen if every week you made a wish? What magic might start to stir? Wishcasting Wednesday is a safe haven for wishes, a fertile field in which to plant wish seeds and have them witnessed and tended lovingly. It’s a place where magic begins. Make a Wish: Dare to dream. Every Wednesday here at Jamie Ridler Studios, there will be a wish prompt to inspire you.”

Today’s wishcast: “What do you wish to remember?”

Picture from Jamie's Post

I wish to remember my innate kindness and wisdom. I wish to remember my basic nature, the “real” me, the truth, my Self that is like the sun.  Weather comes, clouds and storms, and can make it seem like it’s gone, but it is always there, even when I can’t see it. In the same way that the sun is a universal truth, so is my basic goodness.

I wish to remember that I am enough, and I am whole. I am not a problem to be fixed, or a project to undertake. I am not broken. I am wholeheARTed. I am worthy of love, as I am. I don’t have to prove myself, be perfect, or put on a performance. I can simply be who I am.

I wish to remember to be here now, to remain present and mindful. This is where life is, this is where I can be with my breath and the steady beat of my heart. This moment is, it is perfect and it is always available.

I wish to remember that I am already awake. This is a theory I’ve heard about in my study of Buddhism–that we need not strive to become enlightened, but rather we simply need to remember that we already are, in this very moment, awake.

I wish to remember that gentleness is my superpower, (thanks to the beautiful and generous Susan Piver and her Open Heart Project for this reminder). It is through my kindness that I am strong, through my open and tender heart that I am courageous, through love that I am a warrior.

We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement. All these trips that we lay on ourselves—the heavy-duty fearing that we’re bad and hoping that we’re good, the identities that we so dearly cling to, the rage, the jealousy and the addictions of all kinds—never touch our basic wealth. They are like clouds that temporarily block the sun. But all the time our warmth and brilliance are right here. This is who we really are. We are one blink of an eye away from being fully awake. ~Pema Chödrön

  • What do you wish to remember?