ThePracticalBuddhist.com
  • Home
  • TEACHINGS: Blog
  • Coming Home Video Series
  • The Heart Sutra | A New Translation & Commentary
  • LIFE COACHING
  • BOOKS:
  • How to Find Inner Peace
  • The Self in No Self
  • Making Your Way in Life as a Buddhist
  • Scratching the Itch: Getting to the Root of Our Suffering
  • Raising a Happy Child
  • Dear Buddha | An Advice Column
  • A Buddhist Anthem - There's Nothing Like Today
  • Who Am I?
  • Bio
  • Contact

Feel Like a Failure

12/16/2013

0 Comments

 
Dear Hanh Niem,

I feel like a failure.  For years I have been meditating, going to temple, reading books. and more recently reading your blog and advice column.  In many respects my life has changed a lot during this time.  I have found much peace and happiness.  However, it frequently happens that I am not aware when my ego-mind arises and so I don’t stop and return to my breathing, etc., and am left with yet another teachable moment when I meditate the next day.  

I know you’ve written why this keeps on happening, and yet I can’t help feeling a failure.  And I have hurt people I love and care deeply about because of my ego-mind’s interference with listening deeply and speaking with loving kindness.

Feel Like a Failure


Dear Feel Like a Failure,

If you are practicing daily and following the suggestions I have made, there is little more you can do to stop the constant activity of your ego-mind.  This is part of our suffering.  And as with all aspects of our suffering, you need to have unconditional love and compassion for yourself.  You are not a failure in any sense of the word ... forgetting for the moment that that is a cultural label which should be excised from your mental vocabulary.  

Perfection is not something that is realistic or even healthy to strive for.  All you can do is the best that you can.  Take comfort in the fact that a teacher as learned and esteemed as Pima Chodron has moments when her ego-mind arises and takes control, and certainly lesser teachers such as myself experience this frequently.

What I would suggest, however, in the type of situation you describe ... where you feel you have harmed someone ... is consider making amends to that person, apologize for not listening deeply and not speaking with loving kindness.  Unless you sense that making such an apology would make the other person feel very awkward or in some other way would be discomfiting, making amends is a good spiritual practice.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Dear Buddha |  An Advice Column by Hanh Niêm

    Archives

    November 2020
    January 2017
    August 2016
    April 2016
    January 2016
    August 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    March 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013

    Categories

    All
    Acceptance Isn't Working
    Bored In The Country
    Compassion For Some Not All
    Confused
    Consumed By Fear
    Controlled By Cravings
    Feel Like A Failure
    Frustrated!
    Have No Peace
    Heart Or Ego?
    How To Know What To Do
    How To Stop Striving
    Longing For Good Sex
    Meditation Isn't Working
    Mind Won't Stop
    Obsessed About The Future
    Overwhelmed By Desire
    Questioning The Meaning Of It All
    Restless And Unmoving
    Show Me The Way
    Thinking Of Divorce
    Tired Of Anger
    Torn Between God And Buddhism
    Trapped In Disappointment
    Trying To Be Present
    Trying To Live The Purpose Driven Life
    Unhappy With The Human Condition
    Wanting To Fight The Good Fight
    Want To Smile
    What Am I To Do?
    Why Am I Here?
    Why Am I Not Free?
    Why Do We Suffer?

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.