Leaving the emotion.

So now we come to the hard truth. This person did not hurt you. You did that, and only you can do that. In some way you have held on to a fantasy of how that relationship should have been and when you didn’t get what you wanted, you suffered. It’s always like this before we awaken, blaming the other person for how we feel. But all our feelings begin and end within us. No-one can give them to us, and no-one can take them away. This is the understanding of the teaching, ‘the world that we experience is the one that we create for ourselves, moment after moment.’ The only solution is to let go, not of the person or event, but of the attachment to the fantasy of it. In fact the whole of our Dhamma practice is just this; to release ourselves from the emotional relationship to our old story, which arises in every moment and colours the world that we experience. This needs to be done with love and gentleness for yourself but also with consistent effort and awareness. Dhamma is supported only by wisdom, and wisdom is truth. In the end we cannot escape the reality of our human condition, that no matter how clever or intelligent we are, the world we experience is conditioned by the mind states we empower. Awakening is growing up and becoming an adult in the truest sense.

May all beings be happy.