Staying grounded

How to respond and lead peaceful lives??


 Positive Groundlessness and the Three Difficult Practices

The first difficult practice is noticing when you get hooked, when you get caught in a habitual pattern which causes you to suffer Nothing wrong with getting hooked as I am in some toxic relationships. It's how we  respond.
 Can you be different ??“choosing a fresh alternative.” Through this practice, we begin to explore the interruption of the momentum which keeps our suffering alive. In the face of this “being hooked”, we often speak and act in ways which only serve to strengthen our habits of resentment, anger, blaming others, and so forth, which just entrench us in patterns that make us more and more unhappy.

The third and final difficult practice is making this exploration a way of life. The notion here is that this is not just a one-time thing where you notice you’re hooked, choose a fresh alternative, and then it’s all over. These patterns are something that will continue to arise in our experience, leaving us with dozens or hundreds of opportunities each week to notice the various ways we get caught in the momentum of our habitual responses to life’s challenges.

We also learn about the teaching of “positive groundlessness.” When we notice that we’ve been hooked, we find it very difficult to relax into the experience and to stay open and unbiased, simply experiencing the rawness of what is there. In this space we see that there is truly nothing to hold onto-- no bias, no preference. On the one hand, this experience is quite terrifying, this reality of no ground underneath our feet, no fixed reference point or view in which we can hang out in. But this groundlessness is also filled with “positive” qualities, such as wide open vastness, limitlessness, and extraordinary potential.

Questions for Reflection:

1. Are you aware of what it feels like to “get hooked,”? What does this look and feel like for you?

2. What is your understanding of the notion of “positive groundlessness”?

I am trying so hard to get unhooked even at my advanced age !!