Bhikkhu Jayasara
March 27, 2015 ·
Shared with Public
Ive been doing a lot of contemplation on my life lately. One of the good things about living at a monastery is that even if its busy you can still find a little time for said activity.
Ive come to the conclusion that there are two things in this life that have brought me the most joy and happiness.
Those two thing are:
1) the freedom I’m ever so slowly developing through insight gained in my meditation practice. There truely is no deeper joy.
2) the true pure joy of knowing you’ve played a part in helping someone else better their lives in some way or get through something tough. Whether thats been helping my wife through the last years of her life, helping to raise my nephew into a good person, to the handful of times i helped a parent determined to better themselves at CPS and saw the transformation, to doing what i could to motivate a goruck teammate or a bhavana retreatant not to quit.
I’ve come to realize that even though I dream of being by myself in the woods meditating for the rest of my life, im at my best when doing what I can to help others. Since a small child ive always wanted to help others.
Sometimes I joke to myself that i must be like that guy from one of my favorite tv shows quantum leap, who leaps into the bodies of others to help fix people’s lives etc.
but ive come to realize that helping without wisdom can be something that does more harm then good. Now I try to stick to my limits of what i can do and point elsewhere when the situation is beyond me.
So I just need to make sure ive helped myself before i help others, because as the buddha said.. If you are stuck in a raging river and can’t cross, how can you help others cross?
Im so very grateful for all the people ive met in this life and all the experiences ive had, “good” or “bad”. Im most grateful now to be in a place where i can do the upmost to help myself and others better our lives, and through doing so the world around us as well.