lara simmons

"...[T]o stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge—that is the path of true awakening.”  --Pema Chodron Leave it to Pema Chodron to rock the addiction quote like she rocks everything else. This woman gets life in a human body. She just gets it.  We had some family over last night and we ordered Chinese food. And there was General Tso's Chicken, breaded and sauced to perfection. And I wanted some. My left hand was holding the platter, my right hand was on the spoon, and then I realized, "breaded" probably meant "wheat." Ugh. I started to question - and then to bargain - and then I put the spoon down and stayed with the feeling of wanting and not getting. And, surprisingly, it didn't last all that long. But what about when it's about something more than Chinese food? When your partner is sick, or your kid is in trouble, or your job is in jeopardy? Staying when the s...

“...[N]o man is free if he fears death...[T]he minute you conquer the fear of death, at that moment you are free." --Martin Luther King, Jr. I love this quote, and it terrifies me. The truth of it terrifies me and the truth I know in my heart that I am still very much afraid of death. And illness and getting in trouble and not being liked and conflict and confrontation. Let's just say I have a ways to go until I am truly free. I am thinking about this today because it's the first day of middle school for my older son and there is a lot of fear among parents around middle school, mainly based on their own experiences of it I suppose, but also a lot of the "talk" these days is about drugs and sex and social posturing - all of which supposedly starts in middle school. It's not that I think "they" are wrong necessarily, I am just beginning to wonder if we should fear it all. When I think back upon my middle school (and high school) days I know I ...

"It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human." --Pema Chodron When I started to write this post it was never a question of WHO I was going to quote, it had to be Pema. If Wacky Sunday were an official holiday, Pema Chodron would be its Patron Saint. So what is Wacky Sunday, you ask? It's a day in which ev...