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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Emma - Lopen Ani Pema Deki

Good morning.

In many ways my development as a spiritual person, Buddhist nun has been intrinsically linked to the moments of difficulty in my life and the wish to find a way to deal with them. After all obstacles and challenges seem pretty unavoidable.

After the Buddha reached a state of mental consciousness, we call Enlightenment, he did not say anything for many days. When he finally decided to speak, he shared his first teaching which is called the Four Noble Truths. The first of these four truths was the truth of suffering.

So, he started with the reality of difficulty. He had witnessed difficulties such as old age, sickness, death and how hard it was for humans to be content with what they have and how things are.

So the Buddhist path can be seen as coming from a place of recognising things are tough and asking what is the best way to firstly learn to deal with that.

Over the years I have learnt different approaches to obstacles. A key one is called Taking Obstacles onto the Path – this is a process of seeing that the obstacles we face often offer us the greatest points of growth. If we wish to develop greater kindness, greater calmness and so on the times to increase these qualities often come in circumstances where it is hard to be kind, difficult to be calm. And when we mange this then we know we are not defined by our obstacles, that we have freed ourselves from them.

‘May all beings be at peace and may this begin with us’