Despite the Voices

As I lay awake this morning the message came from within me. Despite the voices in my head (Mara), despite the messages I thought I was getting from the outside world (Jesus), I always listened to the voice within (buddhanature, Christ within). If the moral of Judas' story is that he had a choice, it wasn't the choice of betraying Jesus for the money, it was that he had a choice to listen to that space of love within himself. That instead of running away from the pain and uneasiness we can choose to stay with it. To turn and face it, offer ourselves to it, to climb down the monsters throat and watch it dissolve.

We can let circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.

~ Pema Chödrön