Listening to the heart
Jeroen
Not all those who wander are lostNetherlands Veteran
I was just having a discussion with a good friend about meaning in life, and she held that for her learning and development held more meaning than proving one’s capability through overcoming challenges. For me that hasn’t been true, if I look at my life the things I was most proud of, that lent me the most confidence, they were creating things of beauty and accomplishing difficult things.
I think that meaning ends up in one’s life automatically, as long as you follow your heart. I find that not listening to the mind but listening to the heart is an art, it’s like finding the silence inside even amidst noisy surroundings, a knack. I haven’t always been equally good at it but most of my best decisions have come from that space.
I said yesterday to my dad, if I have a regret it is that I didn’t make it happen when you proposed that we should go on a tour to Egypt together to see the antiquities a couple of years ago. That may still happen, I held it out for him that if he becomes well enough we will go and do it with the two of us. It’s difficult but I think my mother will be alright with being on her own for a couple of weeks if we arrange the right support for her. And that immediately felt like the right thing to do.
Generally I can only find my emotions and the voice of inspiration that comes from my heart when I’m quiet inside.
Comments
In terms of growth and evolving, learning and development co-exist with overcoming adversity and challenges. Caveat, if the learning and development are strictly theoreticle, then it is not learning and development in the true sense. It is when we take the learning and use it to develope, to grow, appling that learning to our lives, to our understanding, that it reaches parity with direct experience and challenges.
So, I would as your friend to define what she means by "learnong and development".
I would also negate the "superiority" of either your or her opinion regarding superiority.
Both have a commonality.
To grow, to expand, in either circumstance, we must be open to that growth or expansion from our action or interactions. In reality, learning and overcoming a challenge go hand-in-hand. They are two approaches to the same goal and are intertwined, conciously ot unconciously.
Peace to all
define "heart".
Please
I would call it “the seat of the emotions”. In Far Eastern languages the words for heart and mind are the same, interestingly.
It is said that there are three Storehouses
First is of the materiel - Job, house - material possessions
Second is of the body - Healthy body and mind
Third is the storehouse of the Heart - Example Buddha and Bodhisattva
Growing empathy, compassion, courage, perseverance and wisdom
The heart of a Buddha is the heart (mind) that fills the self with a love that embraces not just self, but all others. "My worth is boundless, as is that of everyone, without exception."
When a Buddha or Bodhisattva shows anger toward a person, it is not anger at the person but his/her actions. Actions which denigrated, do not value others thus denigrating that person. One who thus closes his/her heart falls into darkness.
peace to all
Did you mean to say, “one who closes his heart to the person, rather than condemning the action, himself falls into darkness”? That would make a certain sense to me. I’ve felt for a long time that there is no such thing as evil, only those who are misguided and follow what are at root base desires. To close ones heart to the misguided leads one only to one’s own darkness.