Awakening: We are Buddha Seed

There are times when I feel a need to withdraw, to seek within myself balance and harmony. I was in such a state in November.  I was considering withdrawal as winter became reality, and the holiday season was just around the corner.

As I read this post Accepting Yourself I began to ask myself the questions posed in the article, to reflect on my own childhood, and on what we teach our children today.  I left a comment there that would later lead to my holiday season retreat.

During my late twenties I awakened and became conscious during my struggle with the big C. I examined all the negative messages that I had been inculcated with as a child. I clearly saw how these negative messages undermined my self esteem. I recognized that we were being bombarded with advertising aimed at making us buy into the ideas that we were not good enough, not whole, not the best we could be so we would buy products and services we did not need. Thereafter I jettisoned these beliefs and turned my back to the belief system I had been raised in and left it.

Time passed and I met my other, my shadow self and had to come to terms with my real flaws all rooted in a lack of compassion for myself and others. I came to understand that I was still attached to certain outcomes and adverse to others. The struggle to integrate my shadow self and my “self” followed. The light dawned when I recognized that happiness was a choice made between my ears. I began to develop compassion for myself and began to love myself. This natural progression enabled me to feel compassion and love for others and to open my heart and mind and learn how to live consciously.

I do not claim the I have arrived. I claim only that I am awakened and mindful most of the time. When I fought my battle with the big C I gave up the practice of reliving my past and projecting my future. I recognized doing so led to suffering – my own and that of my loved ones, my family, my friends. I learned how to dwell in and appreciate the now moment. I learned how to be grateful and how to express that gratitude. I learned how to recognize when I was off the path and in the ditch and how to get back to the now.

These are hard lessons to learn. Lessons that must be learned and confirmed over and over again in this life, in this body and in the lives and bodies I have yet to live.

How sad it is that we parents find ourselves backsliding and buying into the delusions of samsara. Amidst the tension of living in societies that teach our youth to reject their selves we struggle to to teach them self acceptance, to teach them how to make the happiness choice, to lead them to recognize their true compassionate inner nature is Buddha seed that they may cultivate and nurture it, so it may flower and bear fruit.

Without doubt compassion is our Buddha seed or true nature, our potential to become a Buddha, and it is because all living beings possess this seed of self acceptance and compassion that they will all eventually become Buddhas.

Namaste