Ram Das said: “If you think you’re enlightened, go spend a week with your family.”
Family of origin or close household family members have an outsized ability to touch our deepest triggers. In a flash, our deepest insights and understandings can seem to vanish, to be replaced by reactivity that can heap suffering onto pain. What can we expect of our practice of Buddhist principles in the face of intense relational triggers? What insights from Buddhism can help us work with strong reactivity in close relationships? How should we approach, and cultivate practices that can help us remain grounded at perhaps the toughest times?
Lorilee shared reflections this week on her experience with applying various spiritual teachings to family-generated triggers, and share a talk by Jake Dartington and some of Pema Chodron’s reflections which offer some practical wisdom on the topic: https://tricycle.org/dharmatalks/wise-effort-and-the-window-of-tolerance/
