Skip to content

So I have this friend…

What do you recommend when you have a friend who is stuck?

Stuck on what’s comfortable.
Stuck on what’s easily understood.
Stuck on what’s familiar.
Stuck on what makes them feel solid.

How does a bodhisattva not become a nuisance?

Posted in Buddhism.

Tagged with .

3 comments

By TMcG – September 29, 2008

3 Responses

Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. noreply@blogger.com (Barry) says

    I’m your friend. Most of the time I’m stuck on what’s comfortable, easy, and familiar.

    I become a bodhisattva only in those rare moments when I take the risk to reveal my own stuck-ness to those I care about.

    All I have to offer is my own work, as it appears in the moment.

    Maybe if you expose your own stuck nature to your friend, she/he will experience an opening of their own. Bodhisattvas can’t do anything by themselves!

    September 30, 2008, 12:11 am
  2. noreply@blogger.com (TMcG) says

    Such a good point and actually that is what ended up happening.

    I became quite vulnerable in a discussion group and really opened up to how essentially messed up I can be at times. (I have the projection that this person thinks I’m a strict student of the dharma who goes ‘by the book’, without any evaluation of the teachings.) I can only hope that my admission of ‘messedup-ed-ness’ helped to see that I’m really no different from them as they are no different from me.

    Thanks for your comment!

    September 30, 2008, 11:53 am
  3. noreply@blogger.com (Barry) says

    Well, that’s amazing! As I wrote the other day on my blog, dukkha means that we’re all broken.

    Barry

    September 30, 2008, 12:50 pm

« »