When I read through my pre-course notes about my goals from this course, I noticed all the goals were some kind of super-mind skills I wanted to learn, such as being better at focusing and controlling my emotions. I understood this was for me just another way to reach something which Tara Brach called an if-only-mind: I wanted to get a better mind, so I could do everything better, so that I eventually could be happy.
The most freeing thought came on the seventh week: I don’t need to get anywhere else to be happy. I don’t need to be an elite athlete, I don’t need to be anyhow perfect. This was a huge finding for me as I’ve struggled with a feeling of not being good enough for as long as I can remember.
So, this is the life philosophy I’m going to apply in everything I do: what is here is enough. It’s okay to return some practice sheets with missed practices, for instance. And for the meditation practices, I think I’m going to do them whenever I feel like: not necessarily every day but probably at least twice every week. It might also be that I’ll do it more than once a day sometimes. The only sure thing is that I’m not going to wholly stop or, not one time, feel bad about meditating too often or too rarely.
And for the informal practices, I think I’ll do them as much as I can but not focus too much on them. I’ll let the processes, such as soften-soothe-allow, just run automatically, as it once already did. Being present in the moment doesn’t to my mind need anything special, just a little reminder now and then.
And to conclude this I’d like to thank you, Mr. Potter, personally for bringing this course available for everyone. It’s an enormous work to do for no money and I couldn’t appreciate it more.
So, hope you are well and will hear something from my friends as well (I think I’ll try to persuade them to give this course a try).
- Riikka K.
"Letter of Learning"
from Riikka K. in Finland
