Cultivating the Mind

Today, it seems that so many people are suffering from an unidentifiable psychological malaise. First of all, most of us don't even know we feel this way.  Sadly, we find it difficult to recognize the hold victim beliefs have on us. We struggle to survive, to cope with the unidentifiable problems causing feelings of malaise. And because we don't recognize the problem, we don't know how to go about solving it.

As victims with unidentifiable problems,  we have imprisoned ourselves in a miasma of angst and intense suffering. It is from this mindset that we learn to live with intolerable pain.  This is the level of consciousness where we must begin our work to overcome the victim beliefs rendering us powerless to perceive life without pain and suffering.

At the heart of all doubts, pain, and suffering is our mind. If we allow our minds to be cultivated with daily dosages of victim beliefs, then we will, inevitably, find ourselves functioning in a bottomless pit of victimhood. Victimhood is our anointed sanctuary, our safe house, where we hide from bountiful opportunities to free our minds of victim beliefs. Here, in our self-anointed kingdom of victimhood, we are able to redefine our powerlessness as success. We are free to embody apathy and espouse blandness prose about the benefits of seeking victimhood.

In our world, in the kingdom of victimhood, we are free to suffer in silence, because suffering is the way of life for victims. And even if we wanted to complain or do something about our living conditions, there's no one around to hear us. Unfortunately, in our kingdom -- victimization of the mind -- we have fallen too far down into the morass of pain and suffering for anyone to even know we want to transform our minds.

Nevertheless, there's a way for us to free ourselves from victimhood. When we reach the point in our suffering that we recognize it as suffering, we are ready to begin our ascend from victimhood into enlightenment. We, regardless to our numbers, begin to open our minds to perceive the limitless opportunities available to us.  Our willingness to search for openness provides us with enough light to take the first step.  And with each step thereafter, we create greater clarity. 

Whenever we open our minds to embrace clarity, we begin the planting of seeds -- thoughts, ideas, and beliefs -- that cultivate our now fertile minds to produce enlightened activities. And it is from our daily activities that we begin to change our behavior and begin our ascend from victimhood. While the process is long, and sometimes arduous, we must continue on our journey if we desire to overcome the suffering in our lives.

Now, even among those of us who are reluctant to embrace new ideas, it certainly seems plausible that if we change our activities, we, undoubtedly, change our results. It seems that only question is the type of activities we change to.  And as painful as it might be, we have to accept personal responsibility for the the actions that led us to  us to victimize our minds in the first place.

In the meantime, we must do the work ourselves.  We cannot wait on someone to do it for us. The seeds we are planting today are the ones that will become our actions for tomorrow. So we must remain mindful of the types of seeds we are planting. If we want peace, we must plant peace seeds. If want forgiveness, we must plant forgiveness seeds and so on.