Finding our Way

“Our difficulties are not obstacles to the path; they are the path itself. They are opportunities to awaken. Can we learn what it means to welcome an unwanted situation, with its sense of groundlessness, as a wake-up call? Can we look at it as a signal that there is something here to be learned? Can we allow it to penetrate our hearts? By learning to do this, we are taking the first basic step toward learning what it means to be open with whatever life presents us. Even when we don’t like it, we understand that this difficulty is our practice, our path, our life.”
–Ezra Bayda, from Being Zen: Bringing Meditation to Life

Sometimes we need to look for places to stop and rest along our path. Society tells us we shouldn’t ever stop, we should remain moving at all costs. We may need to stop from time to time, to catch our breath and see what is around us. We cause ourselves difficulty when we move forward with little or no thought of our path. It is then we become lost. Lost because we are unsure what it is we are searching for. Without a clear path we will struggle to find our way.  We also never think to ask others for help or feel it is weak to do so. Instead we move along the path and wonder to ourselves if it is the right path. There are times when we move along the path because others have directed us, others have told us the path is correct. When we place trust in others without trusting that relationship we find ourselves hurt.

Often in our travel we feel as though we’re alone. We see the path but can’t see around the bend. We become tentative and we stop moving forward.

When we choose to get back onto the path we have been following we need to look for our lighthouse; the beacon that will lead us home.