Cattāri Brahmavihārā

It feels almost a shame to admit it but my perception of the world is completely out of whack. I have for so long been a fault-finder that it is second-nature to slip into this mode without realizing it. It is only when the heart has become a dry, rocky and barren plain that I am forced to take stock of the way I have been perceiving the world and myself in it.

Without contement and appreciation, my life becomes a series of event and checkpoints to be passed through but it never arrives. I never take in the scent of the flowers, instead I simply scratch their presence down on a tablet, checking them off for their bare existence as it were, and move on to the next thing. This is not upekkha. This sterile and arm’s-length handling of the manifold of perception is not “buddhist.” It is a cold and lonely, an approach calculated to keep hurt and disappointment at bay when, in fact, it only brings more of the same.

If our duty is to comprehend and stand under dukkha, this can never be accomplished if I am always already trying to beat it to the punch.