Friend or Foe?

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." 
                                                                              Annie Dillard




So obviously true isn't it? And yet I wonder how much we're generally aware of the impact of the patterned behaviour we live by, day in, day out - of the thoughts we're thinking, the beliefs we hold to be true which then shape how we go about living each and every day.  How much time do we spend with blame (self or other) for instance? With shame, judgement, even self-loathing? How much time is spent re-hashing the story of who did what to who to cause the upset, of how it should have been different or, if only .... then?

We can spend our hours and days with such thoughts and beliefs. Before we know it, we've made life-long enemies of ourselves. The ego both hates its own self and believes it deserves better. So then we wonder, "How can I change myself then, since I'm obviously not doing this life thing right?" 

And this, I think, is the realisation that's so transformational about meditation:  we don't have to change a thing. The need to change suggests "not good enough" to the psyche all over again. We don't meditate to change, we meditate to be with what is in this very moment - to befriend ourselves by compassionately listening. When we sit with ourselves just as we are, observing the flow of our thoughts and behaviours, the constant flow of our feelings and emotions, willing to accept ourselves as we are, then guilt, shame and self-hatred naturally have no place anymore.  

---