Walking Your Path

Walking Your Path

If you have a spiritual path, and you are walking solidly on it, then you have nothing left to fear. You can encounter each thing that arises in your life with wisdom, sometimes even with ease.

Of course there will be challenges and difficulties. Challenges and difficulties are part of the nature of life. So our path must be one that acknowledges these and gives us a way to view them. If your path does not prepare you to deal with these, then it is not a true path.

I knew a woman who loved her church and was very involved in it, participating in committees and even teaching Sunday school. When her dear friend was diagnosed with cancer, she prayed for him every day. But despite this, he worsened and then died. When this happened, she suddenly viewed it as all a sham, left her church, and lost her faith.

Does anyone really think that if you have faith people you love will never get sick and die? If your path teaches you that, it isn’t a true path. But I doubt her church actually said anything like that. More likely her grasp of the path and its meaning needed to be deepened. The Christian path teaches that suffering is part of life but can serve a redemptive purpose. It doesn’t say there will be no suffering.

The Buddhist path teaches very clearly that sickness, death and loss are part of the human condition. Why do we get sick? Why do we die? Why do we lose what we love? Because that is the nature of things and the nature of human life.

It isn’t that we will be able to face all difficulties with ease. Sometimes they will throw us deeply off balance for a long time. But so long as we keep to the path, we can find a way to right ourselves over time, seeing before us the steps we need to make.

Walk firmly the path that you are on.