Uncovering the Wisdom Within Us, Episode 369
What if life isn't calling us to reach for something outside ourselves, but instead to uncover and nurture the intelligence that's already within us?
We examine how genuine maturity means moving beyond our childhood instincts of self-protection, discussing what it means to be truly "grown up" – a state where we can feel at home in our world regardless of circumstances. This isn't about shielding ourselves from life's challenges, but about allowing our inner wisdom to emerge and flourish so we can face them with less of a sense of ‘safety vs harm’ and more of a sense of our own capacity to be full participants in whatever life brings our way.
This week's Turning Towards Life is hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.
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Uncovering the Wisdom Within Us
There’s a life affirming teaching in Buddhism, which is that Buddha, which means ‘awake’, is not someone you worship, Buddha is not someone you aspire to; Buddha is not somebody that was born more than two thousand years ago and was smarter than you’ll ever be.
Buddha is our inherent nature - our buddha nature - and what that means is that if you’re going to grow up fully, the way that it happens is that you begin to connect with the intelligence that you already have.
It’s not like some intelligence that’s going to be transplanted into you. If you’re going to be fully mature, you will no longer be imprisoned in the childhood feeling that you always need protect yourself or shield yourself because things are too harsh.
If you’re going to be a grown up - which I would define as being completely at home in your world no matter how difficult the situation - it’s because you will allow something that’s already in you to be nurtured. You allow it to grow, you all it to come out, instead of all the time shielding it and protecting it and keeping it buried.
From ‘Start Where You Are’
by Pema Chodron
Photo by Chris Ensey on Unsplash