What we call a self is actually a story about our experience of life. And we construct the story because we’re trying to give some order to what is actually a remarkably chaotic process. And then we get seduced by the seeming consistency of the story that we’ve constructed. And now, instead of just relating directly to our experience, we relate to our experience in terms of the story, and that’s where the difficulties start. One way of looking at Buddhism is as a way of learning how to relate to life without believing the stories that we come up with. And that just opens up extraordinary possibilities.
–Ken McLeod, Buddhist teacher and writer
Our stories….my stories have had me living a small life….a fearful life…a shameful life…letting go of the stories I’ve wrapped around past hurts and trauma…weaving stories around intense emotions…making them solid and constricting. I discovered the practice of meditation about 15 years ago…I came to it during a crisis in my life when my world was falling apart and everything I thought I knew imploded…meditation helped me stay somewhat sane…at first I thought it would fix me, make the pain go away..it didn’t, it brought me closer to the pain…it took time but I realized that to heal I needed to feel it all…meditating is a tool that helps me to let go of the story, to see the suffering I put myself through…helps me to open to this life in this moment and the next.-Jen
