These lines...

from my very special book of meditation - In beauty may I walk...Words of wisdom by Native Americans - had me thinking:

....we are members of the sacred hoop of life, along with the trees and rocks, the coyotes and the eagles and fish and toads, that each fulfills its purpose. They each perform their given task in the sacred hoop, and we have one, too.
~ Wolf Song
   Abenaki

We, each one of us, has a duty to perform wherever we are placed by life. And we have to just perform our given task, and fulfill our purpose.

Which to my mind means that we need to see to it that we do our best and give of our best wherever we have been placed by life. Look at a tree - it stands where it has been placed, its branches cover a certain span, its roots go down to a certain depth,and various small animals live on it, both above and below the ground, and depend on it for succor. We depend on the tree for Oxygen and shade and it nourishes our soul with its beauty. But the tree stays where it is. It does not stretch out its branches anywhere else just because it sees a weary traveller walking a little distance away, it does not suddenly provide more food to feed other little animals that roam around, it does not sprout any more branches than it should or send them out in other directions than it is supposed to.....It just IS and provides succor and nourishment for the body and soul for those who fall in its path. Which is exactly what we too should do I believe. Instead of stretching ourselves out all over the place trying to help everyone, trying to fill gaps which we often see only at a distance...in short thinking that we are someone very special and can solve everyone's problem. For one thing we cannot and for another, we are required to be in one particular place and do our best there. Nowhere else. So many times we feel we can sort out other people's problems and end up only making a worse mess, for we move out of where we are supposed to be. For all you know if we had just stayed where we were, we'd have been of more help...

Think about this....We each have our place in the sacred hoop of life.

When we find ourselves...

in a situation we never imagined would happen to us, we get this pain in the pit of our stomach, or double over with a cramp, or feel we are shrivelling up inside. We don't want to feel this way. Buddhist teacher, author, nun and mother, Pema Chödrön says that 'if somehow you could stay present and touch the rawness of experience, you can really learn something.' This means that we need to connect with that physical sensation. This is terribly difficult and even seems unfair, but to connect is the only way out. Pema Chödrön understands this, so she says, that at this time we need to say to ourselves, 'Millions of people all over the world have this kind of discomfort, fear—I don't even have to call it anything—this feeling of not wanting things to be this way. This is my link with humanity.'

Impossible as it is to imagine that anyone else could be going through this same kind of painful and unfair experience, the fact is that we are not alone in our suffering. Connecting with the idea that this moment is a shared experience all over the world, is called compassionate abiding.

This connection with the humanity - knowing that we are not alone in our pain or sorrow or hardship is what eventually brings healing. The pain eases off and we are in a better position to see the situation clearly and figure out how to deal with it.

There are no victims in this world...

says Dr. Edith Eva Eger (Dr. Edie), 'only willing participants.'

She continues, 'Each of us have the opportunity to transform our lives. You may not control your circumstances, but you can control how you respond to them. Everyone has the power to change at any time.'

This is contrary to popular belief, but it is true. So true. Think about it.

And this continues the train of thought started in the previous blog on habits - we actually fall victim to our habits...

Could one of the reasons for our becoming victims is because, in Anne Lamott's words, 'We keep ourselves small with people-pleasing.' Or, to be accepted by people, or to conform, or to stay with the crowd?????

How dangerous it is to say...

this is a habit with me, and I can't change it, or that is a habit with me and if you want to be a friend you better learn to live with it, or this is a habit and well, there it is..., or that is a habit with me and I'm too old to change now.

We adopt a habit and then defend it with all our might little realizing that this or that habit has us trapped, and worse, we've allowed ourselves to get trapped in it.

Pico Iyer's words come to mind: It so often happens that somebody says 'Change your life' and you repaint your car rather than re-wire the engine.

The same can be applied to a wrong habit - a habit that brings pain and grief and separation and hurt. Note, I'm specifying that it brings us pain and grief and separation and hurt, for if we love ourselves, we would not want to hurt or harm ourselves ( remember, unless we love ourselves, we cannot love anyone else).

Instead of changing the habit to a better one, or changing ourselves to get rid of the habit - which would mean hard work - we prefer to, in fact sometimes go to great lengths to whitewash it, or portray it as a virtue. We prefer to stick with the habit, instead of trying to re-wire ourselves to get rid of this habit that has trapped us and has us in its grip.