The Blessing Found in a Curse

What is the sharpest fact in your life right now? Take a moment to consider your most haunting terror, your most persistent aggravation or relentless criticism of yourself, or a deep shame you have taken upon yourself. Feel it in your body. That terror, aggravation, shame, or sadness is your dearest enemy. Never trust a teacher who would devise ways for you to avoid meeting with such potential, for all of your creative power for the Way is found right there. It is tied up in that, usually tied up in defending the self against that. So, turning that way is turning toward your true freedom, and your most fertile condition at every moment. Such is the blessing found in a curse.
That painful and difficult matter can be a Dharma gate into a richer maturity. Practice is not just a matter of breaking through the fact of suffering, but of realizing suffering as a Dharma gate. And when a Dharma gate opens to you, it opens to great freedom, nothing holy. There’s nothing pious here.
– Susan Murphy, Upside Down Zen

This month Santa Sabina Center’s online retreat is “Grounding Ourselves When There is No Ground: A Buddhist-Christian Perspective on Living in Interesting Times. So this month’s quotes will be related to groundlessness and how we meet the unexpected in our lives.

To learn more about our retreat and/or register, please go to: http://www.santasabinacenter.org/retreats-page