Thighs Book Club

I decided to stop being a wuss and start reading again.  Reading makes me uncomfortable because it's a reminder of how I haven't been writing.  Well, fiction writing.  My characters have been sitting in my brain bored out of their minds for the last four years.  It might sound silly I have to prepare myself to read, but I am.  I am womaning up, throwing on some warpaint, and facing my fears head on.

What fears do I have with reading?  One, reading someone else's published work will make me feel like shit that I don't have any published works.  Or you know, a finished book. Two, reading someone else's published work inspires me to create.  Creating is scary!!!  If you create something, it exists!! It's out there for all of the word to judge!  For people to rip apart and analyze and judgejudgejudge.  Judgmental people are so mean!!!

Obviously I need to chill out.  I am going to rewire myself to find reading pleasurable again.  My first book choice should help me relax:

How to Practice The Way to a Meaningful Life by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

There are so many wonderful ideas in this book! I love it. Here is one I want to share.

From the chapter Extending Help > The Value of Difficult Circumstances is an excerpt from Shantideva's A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life:

"For a practitioner of love and compassion, an enemy is one of the most important teachers. Without an enemy you cannot practice tolerance, and without tolerance you cannot build a sound basis of compassion. So in order to practice compassion, you should have an enemy.

When you face your enemy who is going to hurt you, that is the real time to practice tolerance. Therefore, an enemy is the cause of the practice of tolerance; tolerance is the effect or result of an enemy. So those are cause and effect. As is said, 'Once something has the relationship of arising from that thing, one cannot consider that thing from which it arises as a harmer; rather is assists the production of the effect.'"

In my words, you need the dark to see the light.  I love this.

Reading is fun!