The Twenty Difficulties – The Buddha at LMM

There are twenty difficult things which are hard for human beings:

1. It is hard to practice charity when one is poor.
2. It is hard to study the Way when occupying a position of great authority.
3. It is hard to surrender life at the approach of inevitable death.
4. It is hard to get an opportunity of reading the sutras.
5. It is hard to be born directly into Buddhist surroundings.
6. It is hard to bear lust and desire without yielding to them.
7. It is hard to see something attractive without desiring it.
8. It is hard to bear insult without making an angry reply.
9. It is hard to have power and not pay regard to it.
10. It is hard to come in contact with things and yet remain unaffected by them.
11. It is hard to study widely and investigate everything thoroughly.
12. It is hard to overcome selfishness and sloth.
13. It is hard to avoid making light without having studied the Way enough.
14. It is hard to keep the mind evenly balanced.
15. It is hard to refrain from defining things as being something or not being something.
16. It is hard to come into contact with clear perception of the Way.
17. It is hard to perceive one’s own nature and through such perception to study the Way.
18. It is hard to help others towards Enlightenment according to their various needs.
19. It is hard to see the end of the Way without being moved.
20. It is hard to discard successfully the shackles that bind us to the wheel of life and death as opportunities present themselves.

THE THANG

WARM-UP – Wind mills, bend-and-reach, legs spread bend-and-reach, one lap around park

Three kettle bell exercises (1×20) per evolution, while meditating on one of the Twenty Difficulties:

Evolution 1

Halos

Lunge

Goblet Squat

Evolution 2

Press and Push

One-arm extensions

Beep, Beep – I’m a Jeep

Evolution 3

Squat and curl

Plank

Upright row

In between evolutions, 5-minute run, then bear crawl or crab walk 15 yds

COT

Prayers for continued strengthening of the Pax
Prayers for Fire, Police, EMS, Military
Welcome visiting Pax F3 Spit from Richmond
Congrats to Snickers and other GO RUCK finishers – Strong Work!

MOLESKIN

As a preacher’s kid growing up in the church, there was an implied expectation to make everyone *happy. Hence, I quickly got into the business of *trying to make people happy. I have seen this unrealistic dynamic work out in friendships, my marriage, and most especially with my kids. And the results have often been mixed if not disastrous.

Alas, I have become weary.

Trying to make people happy is that way. It also makes you anxious, fearful, apprehensive, uncertain and a dozen other unappetizing states of being.

So recently I’ve stopped.

“So you’re giving up?” said a friend.

“No, I think I’m just letting go,” said I.

Life is difficult (see above), and the only real thing we can do is sit with each other at our respective times of distress and suffering. Sit and sit quietly. You’d think the “doing” would be the hardest thing in trying to relieve someone’s suffering, but it’s actually the “not-doing.”

Hoff, out