Awakin Readings

Every week, we post a reading from various wisdom traditions, to provoke insights and deeper reflection. Each thought is also accompanied by an illustration and an audio recordings (and often translations in other languages). Explore and enjoy!

Don't Side With Yourself

--by Joseph Goldstein (Jun 18, 2018)

Through mindfulness, our hearts become spacious enough to hold the painful emotions, to feel the suffering of them, and to let them go. But it takes practice—and perhaps several different practices—to open to the difficult emotions that we’re aware of and to illuminate those that are hidden. There are some particular difficulties and challenges in being with difficult emotions. We often live in denial. It’s not always easy to open to our shadow side. And even when we are aware, we can get caught in justifying these feelings to ourselves: “I should hate these people—look at what they did.” From justifying these feelings of hatred and enmity (which is quite different than being mindful of them), there can come a strong feeling of...