is a good way in which you can practice in your life. Being strong is like being courageous, acting with a fearless heart. It has no connection to being proud. Discarding unnecessary parts of your Ego, which means also throwing away being proud is a mandatory thing if you want to be genuinely happy in your life, to live your life seeking happiness in the innumerable simple things that life has to offer. Pride can be all right, in a small dosage, so you can acknowledge and rejoice in your successes when they happen. But being humble, joyful and courageous will clear the way for you to see and understand life as it is, so you can enter the beautiful realm of the people that have managed to find their inner light, through the practice of virtuous acts.
20. Spiritual practice
Your suffering will not stop just because you've started your spiritual practice, be it meditation, practicing presence (being Here and Now), prayer, yoga (body mindfulness) or any other that you might choose for your path. This is an illusion of the mind. I have found that, for the most new practitioners of Buddhism, the idea of reaching states of bliss and tranquility, if they would start up meditation, abounds. This is partly true, as meditation, being practiced for a longer while, will start to show you your natural state of mind, which is pristine and which feels blissful. But in the beginning, your meditation practice will first uncover your continuous stream of thoughts that you usually think, that you are mostly not aware of, which causes so much hidden suffering and turmoil for the most of us. Also, in the beginning, your spiritual practice will make things more clear, more real, maybe even deepening your mind turmoil or your suffering. You have to trust this process and continue your practice, because meditation is actually showing you how your mind and emotional states are at the present time, uncovering deeper levels of thought and emotion that you were not really aware of in your every day busy life, so they can gradually clear up.
After a long while, after you have practiced seriously and consistently for a longer period of time, you will perceive everything as it is, not as your small mind always wanted it to be, masking some things and choosing only what it wants. Your path will also be filled with many wonderful things and glimpses of realization, or satori, as the Japanese Buddhists say, which will bring much happiness for any practitioner. As part of your spiritual practice, you need to find and release your deepest fears and suffering, understand them, forgive yourself and the people that have generated them, so you can move on with your life. Otherwise, your subconscious fear and suffering will daunt and follow you for the whole duration of your present life, making you live in a poor way, and most of all, blocking your birthright to be able to give and receive love. Clearing yourself of fear and suffering is a natural and important process, as a result of your meditation practice. The more you practice, the more your mind cleans up of unnecessary thought processes, the more you gain peace of mind and you are thus happier with your life.
So your spiritual life may be messy in the beginning. You have to first find and clear away the causes that kept you stuck in your mind. As you develop, understand and walk steady steps upon your path, things will start to clear up, the sun will appear from the puffy gray clouds and you will start to experience life as it was intended to be. As you begin to accustom yourself to and practice virtues such as compassion, patience, love, kindness, equanimity, purity and humbleness, as you begin to put more and more importance on your practice, your life will begin to get more organized, to make more sense, to have more depth, to enrich itself with so many joyful moments and dear friends that will walk with you along the path that you have chosen. So nothing in this world is gained in an instant, with no effort from your part. The more you progress on your path, the more you will be able to see the beauty of your real life.
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