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Patience
I love the idea of being able to make my own interpretations when it comes to my beliefs (or IDEAS is the word I usually like to use in place of "belief.") Growing up, my family was passively Christian; but I spent the first 9 years of my education going to Christian school.
By the time I got out and went to high school, it was a culture shock for me. About that time, I started questioning my Christian upbringing, Eventually I even started to resent it, and how I felt it had brainwashed me...
But that was the other extreme in my life, and I've moved passed that too. Somewhere between adoring and hating the religion, I found a happy medium... which I think was the first Taoist type thing I had ever done (though I didn't realize it at the time). Now I'm somewhere in an agnostic mind set when it comes to religion, and I'm pretty happy there. The mystery of not being able to fully know about things like god, morality, life after death, etc. no longer scares me like it used to. And I thnk that was a pretty good step forward personally.
Sorry, I kinda went off on a tangent there. :P But thanks for your post. It helps being reassured that there isn't necessarily a right or wrong here. The right/wrong, correct/incorrect thing is my default setting from my childhood, so sometimes I revert back to it.
By the time I got out and went to high school, it was a culture shock for me. About that time, I started questioning my Christian upbringing, Eventually I even started to resent it, and how I felt it had brainwashed me...
But that was the other extreme in my life, and I've moved passed that too. Somewhere between adoring and hating the religion, I found a happy medium... which I think was the first Taoist type thing I had ever done (though I didn't realize it at the time). Now I'm somewhere in an agnostic mind set when it comes to religion, and I'm pretty happy there. The mystery of not being able to fully know about things like god, morality, life after death, etc. no longer scares me like it used to. And I thnk that was a pretty good step forward personally.
Sorry, I kinda went off on a tangent there. :P But thanks for your post. It helps being reassured that there isn't necessarily a right or wrong here. The right/wrong, correct/incorrect thing is my default setting from my childhood, so sometimes I revert back to it.
Comments
How about, rest in patience. In other words, look for the [chref=64]easy[/chref] way. It is the only way I have found that 'works' over the long haul of life.
I suppose this is open to a little misunderstanding. Easy does not necessarily mean pleasureable. In fact, going the way of pleasure often leads to difficulty and does not 'work' over the long haul.
I have a little motto that models the two paths: Short term pain, long term pleasure -- versus -- short term pleasure, long term pain.
Abiding with 'short term pain' is the easy path. Grasping short term pleasure is the [chref=53]by-path[/chref] that is so [chref=63]difficult[/chref] to resist.