Eat Everything

It’s funny that this is the post that I lost when Word just crashed on me. I did not handle it with equanimity. It had already been a tough day at the end of a tough week. I was going to catalog it all in detail but decided I didn’t want to give the difficulties that much air time.

Ram Dass talks about how everything is “grist for the mill” of awakening or enlightenment or growth or evolution, whatever you want to call it. You get grist by separating the grain from the chaff before grinding it into flour. It is on its way to being something useful and nourishing.  Bad experiences and tough days are no different.

We can choose our perspective on what happens. It can be debilitating and unfair, or it can be fuel for growth and seeds for evolution.  You can explain this however you want – God’s will, karma, the universe helping you out, whatever. It can simply be an intentional stance we take, a chosen perspective that no matter what happens we are going to grow from it and be better on the other side. A decision to choose our reaction.

Eat the Weeds

We can’t always choose what kind of seeds life plants for us. Sometimes it’s roses. Sometimes it’s just thorns. We can be mindful of what we plant, but a few weeds are going to slip through. We can resist and resent these, or we can learn to eat weeds.

If we can learn to do that, the weeds don’t matter anymore.

It’s all just food.