Status Updates From A Buddhist Grief Observed

“Don’t force kindness on someone who wants to be left alone”

“Real empathy os sometimes not insisting that it will be okay but acknowledging that it is not” - Sheryl Sandberg

“It is easier to give a mountain of food than to have a real conversation” LOL

“We can start by knowing that we don’t know. And from within that not-knowing, we can offer our presence, our fullest effort & attention”

“Let’s not pressure those deep in darkness to look at the bright side”

“A radical openness to our feelings - even malice and violent sorrow- so that we are not driven mindlessly by what we have suppressed”

“Hell is the self turned in on itself, unable to open and connect”

“the fruit of practice is an unclenching, an easing of the heart into moments where self/other does not come under consideration

“Everything that ends is also the beginning of something else. Our whole world falls apart and we’ve been given this wonderful opportunity” - Pema Chodron

“When we set up gratitude for loss as a norm or an ideal, we encourage false consciousness, self-deception”

“The power of positive thinking invalidates her distress and thereby makes it worse”

“There is in presumed knowledge an arrogance that violates the moment. But the expert is unready to come naked to the moment”

“The stance of knowing is a tempting defense against fear”

“To practice is to approach each moment with kindness and curiosity, with humor and a dignified humility. The truth is that we don’t know each others hearts”

“If you don’t tend to one another, who then will tend to you?” - Buddha

“The farther you go, the less you know” - Lao Tzu

“When facing personal loss or giving direct personal care, forget for a while what you think you know”

“In the beginners mind there are many possibilities; in the expert’s mind there are few” - Shunyru Suzuki

“The evidence of cultures around the world suggests most of us prefer self-condemnation to admitting what is terrifying and obvious: sometimes we are helpless”

“Most of us most of the time world rather blame ourselves than admit that we cannot control when or how our loved ones die”

“Our well-being, our dignity, is already fulfilled when we forget ourselves in acts of love”💗

“To be human is to set sail for the next shipwreck”

“Shock & pain are not a personal failure. It is cruel to judge ourselves so harshly; unhelpful to blame ourselves for being human. Knowing the first noble truth does not exempt us from it”

“Death is safe- but only insofar as we can take the perspective that there is nothing to gain & nothing to lose. There is nowhere else to go; there is just this”

“When we know we are love worthy, then we feel safe even with painful emotions.”

“Valerie knew how much she was loved, and so allowed herself to be seen in her perfect imperfection”

“We need a middle way: not denying the actuality of our pain, while not identifying with it as our core self”

“Hiding your head does not make it go away. Repressed pain returns, reborn again & again in new forms”

“Grief is the process of adjusting to unwanted change”

“How do our unresolved personal issues distort our interactions with those whom we seek to help?”

“She was not a Buddhist, I am. But we are Al apprenticed to the same master - reality.”

“Nothing good happens fast. Training is repetition.”