Facing a Day, Facing Yourself

With palms together,
Good Morning Sangha,

Monday morning. Its a beautiful day. Many of us approach Monday as if we were climbing a mountain with sacks of rocks on our backs. Working at jobs that seem to work against us, our sense of accomplishment and personal worth challenged, we feel disheartened and even disconnected.

Others go to work with a sense of hope and joy, embracing their work, making it a part of them and their experience in the world. They have a sense of personal power and control, a sort of personal authority that enables real authenticity to develop.

What are the differences between these people?

Is it the work itself? Their peers? Their employers or supervisors? Is it something in the water?

So many variables. Yet, one major variable comes to mind: Right Understanding. Right Understanding is a sort of synchronicity, an orientation of compass, map, and traveler. Once oriented, it is possible to make sense of where we are, what direction to go, what degree of effort it will take, how much of what needs to be said, and so forth. People living without Right Understanding are like travelers at war with their compasses and maps.

As in each of the Eightfold Noble Paths, "Right" refers to "true, perfect, same." Understood as we are using the word here, then, we orient our selves with our compass and our map, making them "true." True here means many things, but mostly it means "the same." That is to say, when we become one with our activity, like an arrow flying true to its mark, where arrow and mark are, in truth one, then we are living within Right Understanding.

Who are you? What is your compass? What is your map? How are you not one?

Be well.