Photo by Vasilis Caravitis on Unsplash Truth is a very slippery thing and if you spend any time contemplating it you’ll soon find how few things qualify as abiding, enduring, and universally applicable. Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t. In fact, I think wrestling with what is true is some of the wisest and most important time you can spend.
Beautifully written! I like the way you gently approach and explore this topic. Questioning one's beliefs, and even the idea of questioning one's beliefs, can seem like dissenting, disloyal, heretical territory - reasoning your way into dangerous spiritual realms. And yet, don't we all have a great amount of emotional and mental grasping of our beliefs? We hold them up as the ultimate truth without realizing that our positions actually lead us to a banquet of inner and outer dis-eases. There are certainly basic truths: everyone gets sick, everyone dies, everyone experiences ups-and-downs. Don't the rigid beliefs limit our abilities to connect to each other? Lead to judgement of each other and condemnation - refusal to support or care for one another?
In my experience, especially through insight meditation, I find that the more and more I release the emotional and mental tensions around MY beliefs and MY views about life and what is true, the wider the understanding and wisdom gets; it's as if the more angles of truth come into focus. Of course, practice and dedication are key to this and whenever I fall out of practice, those wider perspectives dry up; this is not an egotistical claim. Wider perspectives are not MINE, they just happen.
I believe the release of the emotional and mental tension around my beliefs and my view results in a natural by-product of ease. Your musings bring levity to difficult topic and encourage reflection! Well done. Please keep sharing!
Beliefs and the Truth
Beautifully written! I like the way you gently approach and explore this topic. Questioning one's beliefs, and even the idea of questioning one's beliefs, can seem like dissenting, disloyal, heretical territory - reasoning your way into dangerous spiritual realms. And yet, don't we all have a great amount of emotional and mental grasping of our beliefs? We hold them up as the ultimate truth without realizing that our positions actually lead us to a banquet of inner and outer dis-eases. There are certainly basic truths: everyone gets sick, everyone dies, everyone experiences ups-and-downs. Don't the rigid beliefs limit our abilities to connect to each other? Lead to judgement of each other and condemnation - refusal to support or care for one another?
In my experience, especially through insight meditation, I find that the more and more I release the emotional and mental tensions around MY beliefs and MY views about life and what is true, the wider the understanding and wisdom gets; it's as if the more angles of truth come into focus. Of course, practice and dedication are key to this and whenever I fall out of practice, those wider perspectives dry up; this is not an egotistical claim. Wider perspectives are not MINE, they just happen.
I believe the release of the emotional and mental tension around my beliefs and my view results in a natural by-product of ease. Your musings bring levity to difficult topic and encourage reflection! Well done. Please keep sharing!