We’re Going to Feel It

Notice how things affect your mind. If you’ve just come from your work or from your home, notice what it does to your mind. Don’t criticize it. We’re not here to blame or to think that there’s something wrong with our profession if our mind isn’t tranquil and pure and serene when we come here.

But notice the business of life: having to talk to people, having to answer telephones, having to type or to travel across London in the rush hour. Maybe we have to work with people who we don’t like, in difficult, aggravating situations. Just notice – not to criticize, but just to accept that these things do have an affect on us.

Recongnise that this is the experience of consciousness and sensitivity. That’s what being born as a human being amounts to, isn’t it? You’re born and you have to live a lifetime as a conscious being in a very sensitive form. So what impinges on you, what comes to you from the objective world, is going to affect you. It’s just the way it is. There’s nothing wrong with it.

But then the ignorant human being takes it all personally, so we tend to make everything very personal. It’s as if I shouldn’t be affected by these things that impinge on me. I shouldn’t feel anger or aversion or greed or irritation and frustration, envy, jealousy, fear, anxiety. I shouldn’t be feeling these things. If I were a normal, healthy man I wouldn’t have any of these problems. If I were a normal, healthy man I wouldn’t be sensitive at all! Like a rhinoceros – with a tough hide that nothing could ever get through.

But recognise that being human, we have these extremely sensitive forms. There’s nothing really wrong with you. It’s just the way it is. Life is like this. We live in a society that is just the way it is. Living in London or in suburbia – or anywhere – we can spend our time grumbling because it’s not perfect. There are many things that are irritating in our lives. But then being sensitive is like this, isn’t it? Sensitivity means that, whatever it is, whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant, pleasurable, painful, beautiful, ugly – we’re going to feel it.

This reflection by Ajahn Sumedho is from the book, The Way It Is, (pdf) pp. 65-66.