[Image: “All I See Is Gold,” by Billy Wilson on Flickr.com. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.) Says the photographer: “I took this this evening — the windchill was unbelievable. This is the edge of the ice at the end of a pier in the Saint Mary’s River. There is enough current at the end on the pier that the water doesn’t freeze there in the winter.”]
From whiskey river:
Eighty-three problems
There is a story of a man who came to see the Buddha because he had heard that the Buddha was a great teacher. He had some problems in his life, and he thought the Buddha might be able to help him straighten them out.
The Buddha listened patiently to the man as he laid out all his difficulties and worries, and then waited for the Buddha to say the words that would put everything right for him.
The Buddha said, “I can’t help you.””What do you mean?” said the man.
“Everybody’s got problems,” said the Buddha. “In fact, we’ve all got eighty-three problems, each one of us. Eighty-three problems, and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you work really hard on one of them, maybe you can fix it — but if you do, another one will pop right into its place.”
The man was furious. “I thought you were a great teacher! I thought you could help me!”
The Buddha said, “Well, maybe it will help you with the eighty-fourth problem.”
“The eighty-fourth problem?” said the man. “What’s the eighty-fourth problem?”
The Buddha said, “You want to not have any problems.”
(Steve Hagen [source (in slightly different words)])
…and:
If the boundaries of the self are defined by what we feel, then those who cannot feel even for themselves shrink within their own boundaries, while those who feel for others are enlarged, and those who feel compassion for all beings must be boundless. They are not separate, not alone, not lonely, not vulnerable in the same way as those of us stranded in the islands of ourselves, but they are vulnerable in other ways. Still, that sense of the dangers of feeling for others is so compelling that many withdraw, and develop elaborate stories to justify withdrawal, and then forget that they have shrunk. Most of us do, one way or another.
(Rebecca Solnit [source])
