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“i can’t do this anymore” says a girl who is not only going to do it but do it well

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What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution.

Ram Dass

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Maybe I’m misunderstanding what Babaji is saying, actually I’m sure I am. But doesn’t this imply that I’m only seeing a misogynist as a misogynist because I’m one?

You're contemplating this quote by Baba Ram Dass: "What you meet in another being is the projection of your own level of evolution."

What he is conveying is this:

The features by which we view and understand ourselves are the same features by which we view and understand other people.

We can use your misogynist example to elaborate.

If you understand your own existence through fixed identities and judgments particularly around gender, then that is how you will view other people. If someone says something or behaves in a way that is misogynistic, you will mentally label them as such. Then when you think of or interact with them, that identity will be superimposed within your perception on some level.

Now lets say you have some sense that all beings have buddha nature, that all beings are made of divine essence. Along with this, you also understand your mind-body as something arising from interdependent causes rather than some inherent quality. Now you will have a more nuanced understanding of other humans as well.

When you see someone who speaks or behaves misogynistically, you can recognize that this is toxic behavior. But then also a question arises: How does a being made from divine essence fall into a harmful state of mind such as misogyny?

Your contemplation reveals that it is due to that person's ignorance of their own divine essence and their simultaneous reliance on gender for both identification and understanding that misogyny becomes possible.

In this way, you can discern a toxic and harmful mental state/behavior in a person even as you recognize the light of divinity within them.

So this is where Ram Dass is drawing our attention.

If you are seeking to realize divinity within yourself, but cannot see it in other humans then you still have work to do. And if you can discover divinity within yourself as well as others, it doesn't mean you lose all ability to discern ignorance and its causes.

You will find during the course of your spiritual practice that as your realizations regarding your own existence deepen, it will alter the way you understand and love other beings--human or otherwise. Similarly, deepening your love of other beings can help to deepen your understanding of your own existence. Both of these perspectives are integrated into spiritual techniques of various traditions.

Hope this helped! Much love, brother.

LY

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Mei rokk sakti toh rokk leti

Iss waqt ko jo haath se fisalta jaa raha,

Kuch doston ko jinse baatein adhoori rehgayi

Kuch rishton ko jinhe suljhaya jaa sakta tha

Kuch logon ko jinhein ek dafa galey se lagana tha

Mei keh sakti toh kehdeti,

"Thodi deyr hi sahi rukkjaao, paas baitho."

"Haan tum khaas ho."

"Yun dil naa dukhaya karo."

"Keh do jo dil mei hai"

Mere bass mei nahi sakuch,

Ye bojh bohot bhaari hai.

Shayad kuch baatein, kuch qissey, kuch rishte,

Adhoore hi sahi hai.

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Do not expect change from those who do not seek it.

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Literally what did olivia laing say about loneliness leading to more loneliness. Loneliness being so repulsive that people sense it from you and stay away. Crazy crazy

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as i continue to become a better woman. i’m really starting to understand the importance of remaining silent. everything doesn't need your input or opinion. everyone doesn’t deserve a reaction from you. some situations are really meant to bring you out character. know when to speak up. most importantly know when to remain silent.

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Something that literally changed my life was working with a friend on a coding thing. He was helping me create an auto rig script and was trying to explain something to me but his words were just turning into static in my brain. I was tired and confused and there was so many new concepts happening.

I could feel myself working toward a crying meltdown and was getting preemptively ashamed of what was about to happen when he said, “Hey, are you someone who benefits from breaks?”

It broke me.

Did I benefit from breaks? I didn’t know. I’d never taken them.

When a problem frustrated or upset me I just gritted my teeth and plowed through the emotional distress because eventually if you batter and flail at something long enough you figure it out. So what if you get bruised on the way.

I viscerally remembered in that moment being forced to sit at the table late into the night with my dad screaming at me, trying to understand math. I remembered taking that with me into adulthood and having breakdowns every week trying to understand coding. I could have taken a break? Would it help? I didn’t know! I’d never taken one!

“Yes,” I told him. We paused our call. I ate lunch. I focused on other stuff for half an hour. I came back in a significantly better state of mind, and the thing he’d been trying to explain had been gently cooking in the back of my head and seemed easier to understand.

Now when I find myself gritting my teeth at problems I can hear his gentle voice asking if I benefit from breaks. Yes, dear god, yes why did I never get taught breaks? Why was the only way I knew to keep suffering until something worked?

I was relating to this same friend recently my roadtrip to the redwoods with my wife. “We stopped every hour or so to get out and stretch our legs and switch drivers. It was really nice. When I was a kid we’d just drive twelve hours straight and not stop for anything, just gas. We’d eat in the car and power through.”

He gave a wry smile, immediately connecting the mindset of my parents on a road trip to what they’d instilled in me about brute forcing through discomfort. “Do you benefit from breaks?” he echoed, drawing my attention to it, making me smile with the same sad acknowledgement.

Take breaks. You’re allowed. You don’t have to slam into problems over and over and over, let yourself rest. It will get easier. Take. Breaks.

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Someone said “ I don’t walk away to teach people a lesson I walk away when I’ve learned mine” and I felt that.

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Distance is my favorite response to weird shit.

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When we recognize that we have a habit of replaying old events and reacting to new events as if they were the old ones, we can begin to notice when that habit energy comes up. We can then gently remind ourselves that we have another choice. We can look at the moment as it is, a fresh moment, and leave the past for a time when we can look at it compassionately.”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh

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Hey LY, before I ask anything I want to say thank you for continuing to post and share wisdom. I was deeply impacted by a post you made recently where you named the process of meditation as 'forgiving yourself for getting lost in thought and returning to [the breath]'. Contemplating self-forgiveness in meditation has been opening in many ways.

My question to you is this: In daily life, how do you distinguish letting go of large emotion-provoking thoughts from repressing large emotion-provoking thoughts?

thank you in advanced for your time and guidance.

Hi friend, thanks so much for your thoughtfully kind words and your insightful question 😁

When we have thoughts that provoke substantial emotional reactions in us, we cannot see beyond those feelings. They will color the perceptions we have of ourselves, of others, of our life, and of the world. It is overwhelming.

Because this is very unpleasant to experience, our instinct is to make it go away--frequently by ignoring or distracting. Put simply, this doesn't work and creates new problems.

So what does it mean to let go of large emotion-provoking thoughts? It means you stop trying to do something to them. The more you try to do something to them, changing or pushing them away, the more you entangle yourself.

Instead, you learn to let them be. You experience those thoughts and their strong emotions. You see them as what they are: thoughts and emotions. The only enemy here is your own squeamishness, your own unwillingness to experience what you are experiencing.

But if you are willing to experience what you are experiencing, then it just happens. Thoughts come and go, emotions rise and fall. You become transparent to the flow of mental-emotional phenomena--neither rejecting nor clinging nor distancing.

The more you learn to do this, the easier and more natural it becomes for you. It doesn't mean that unpleasant thoughts and powerfully uncomfortable emotions will never arise, but it does mean that you will be free from them when they do. You will not be affected or controlled by them. And if there is any wisdom hidden inside them, you will be able to receive that knowledge without being poisoned by the messenger. After all, sometimes all that unpleasantness is there to tell us something.

Obviously this is a project and a process. Some call it shadow work, because it involves looking into and staying with the aspects of ourselves that we prefer to keep hidden--even from ourselves.

Remember, you don't need to tackle your deepest traumas first; you can start with your wimpier demons. The method doesn't change regardless of the content. Once you've experienced how this works, you will learn to broaden its application to more challenging examples.

A fantastic book I recommend to no end is The Places That Scare You by Pema Chodron. Definitely worth a read or two.

Much love!

LY