Thankful for Opportunities to Learn

Calvari Steps, Pollença, Majorca.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.     -- Brian Tracy

I discovered a bit more about the Dalai Lama. He believes that our enemies are good teachers. Life is certainly not straight forward. It can be challenging and full of ambiguities.

“If we are content just to think that compassion, rationality, and patience are good, that is not actually enough to develop these qualities. Difficulties provide the occasion to put them into practice. Who can make such occasions arise? Certainly not our friends, but rather our enemies, for they are the ones who pose the most problems. So that we truly want to progress on the path, we must regard our enemies as our best teachers.

For whoever holds love and compassion in high esteem, the practice of tolerance is essential, and it requires an enemy. We must be grateful to our enemies, then, because they help us best engender a serene mind! Anger and hatred are the real enemies that we must confront and defeat, not the “enemies” who appear from time to time in our lives.”

Anger can be useful when it doesn’t eat us up - when we can let it go - allow it to be a catalyst for good. Hard to do? Yes? I am certainly no saint, but a ‘work in progress! This is a definite challenge.

Actually I think friends and family, as well as 'our enemies' can hurt us too and that we can learn from them – patience, forgiveness, generosity and compassion.

Today: - What challenges or difficulties have been my ‘teachers’ and which I can give thanks for?