Without *this* no heart-work can work
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A Great Intention To Unbound Your Heart Means Nothing Unless You Also Get *This* You might not know this, or maybe you’re a geek in ancient Greek etymology. ✅ πρόβλημα ✅ πρόβλημα ✅ πρόβλημα ✅ πρόβλημα So what do you think? Is that a problem? We keep the continuous dream going AND ourselves not moving forward. To that end, problems are like wake-up calls. Problems are an immensely meaningful gesture and terrific tools. The word "problem" comes from the ancient Greek πρόβλημα (próblēma), which means a thing "thrown or put forward", "obstacle," or "projection". This is referring to something being placed or laid in front of a person for their consideration. The concept of this word is that something is "put forward" for consideration or resolution, while our modern views emphasize problems as a source of perplexity, distress, or vexation; a difficulty in accepting. In case you’re still not sure what I mean: Once upon a time there was you. Problems, problems and problems. And more problems. One thing after the other is hitting you like a hailstorm until it all feels like, it’s too many problems and I can’t take them anymore. One day, you mix the yellow paint and are about to make your first brushstroke on your first paid project after two years of rehab time for your knee injury when a drip, drip, drip noise somewhere in the apartment interrupts you. Hesitantly you open the door, but your scream is sudden and sharp. On the ceiling a dark-colored water stain laughs forebodingly at your face. Desperately you try to calm your shaking hands to call your husband Nik when your son's school director’s number, Mrs Gollmar, appears on your display, and her raging cascade of unholy words nearly make you go deaf. "Enough…enough", "Marvin…again…involved", "Get him now…", "Expelled…". It’s like a one-two punch where the first punch is getting your bell rung and the second punch delivers a fatal knockout blow. Now we’re talking about a one-two punch. What about a five-six punch where a left jab is followed right with a hard right cross till you're beaten to a bloody pulp? This is when your 17-year-old daughter Marie opens the front door with red eyes and a snotty nose because she got stuck in the garage and scratched the whole side of the family car, and all you say is, "All will be ok, don’t worry, honey", while you snatch the keys out of her hands and rush towards the stairs to the garage to get your suspended son back home. But Mrs Labrowski greets you on your way down with one of her sneery remarks. This time she threatens that if the branches on the joint stairs from her garden work do not get cleaned up soon, "You will pay for it!" Before you can even snap viciously back, you slip on a medium-sized branch, luckily catching the railing…Well, you don’t even want to think about what could’ve happened if you had not! Behind you, Mrs Labrowski ugly laugh and "I told you so", remind you why you just loathe her so much and then you go onto your knees, right in front of the parked car while a sharp pain shoots into your left knee. Damn it. It’s probably 'the' old injury. Bad, bad, bad; it's the only thing you can think of before you sit on something uncomfortable in the car, and you hold a pregnancy test with two lines in your hand… F**, me 💩 Can you imagine?! PROBLEMS ALERT! These are human stories. And we sometimes forget in those stories that we are solely reducing "something is being placed in front of you for your consideration" down to a source of perplexity, distress, and vexation. INCOMPLETE VIEW ALERT! It is so complex the way we are analyzing non-stop "stuff" from a complicated view of life, ourselves, and others. We are quite interesting creatures. I want to bring us back to the metamorphosis of the caterpillar that "crystalizes" into a butterfly. Because we want to grow. And we want to move forward. (if you missed the last newsletter, I know you’re more than ready, read it here →) This is the antidote to the continuous dream of cultural vexation. If you want to bring yourself on the fast line for the caterpillar to "crystalize", we need to train ourselves to see teachers everywhere and in everything and we need to create the conditions to be less vexed by the "agents" of Dao. One must trust in the agents of Dao and that Dao is "Keeping everything moving forward with infinite compassion and unconditional love." We are bound to face problems in our work on the heart. We have to be equipped to be ready to face and remove all kinds of layers that can stand in the way of the pure heart manifesting. If our understanding of how we view "problems" and the meaning we give "problems" does not expand, nothing will budge at all. No matter how much the universe puts something before you, "Look, look, look! This needs to be changed, this needs to be removed! I can’t put it more clearly in front of you to turn your attention here", if we can only see vexation, resentment and blame… …well I can’t be more blunt: How can we ever move beyond the caterpillar stage? Isn’t it what you want? What you asked for? Then why are you negotiating how it should be delivered to you? 👋M Mirjam Blank |