Vulnerable

I've been feeling sort of tender and vulnerable these days. Here are some words that have arrived on my doorstep in the midst of it:

February 25, 2010
Tricycle's Daily Dharma
Feeling More and More

...We have to get to know and be honest about our particular strategies for dealing with vulnerability, and learn to use our practice to allow ourselves to experience more of that vulnerability rather than less of it. To open yourself up to need, longing, dependency, and reliance on others means opening yourself to the truth that none of us can do this on our own. We really do need each other, just as we need parents and teachers. We need all those people in our lives who make us feel so uncertain. Our practice is not about finally getting to a place where we are going to escape all that but about creating a container that allows us to be more and more human, to feel more and more.

- Barry Magid, "No Gain," Tricycle Summer 2008

And these words from a talk by Jon Bernie that I was transcribing yesterday:

"What’s important is to be able to, like you’re doing, is to kind of put your cards on the table. We often want answers but really the important thing is to be able to ask the question. That’s what’s important. To live in the vulnerability of the question, 'Am I doing OK? Is there something I’m not doing?' See. Live with that. And don’t go further. And that vulnerability will open the door to freedom."