MY DAILY WOW: a huge lesson lies between Pema Chödrön & Bruce Lee – here’s my dilemma about it

Pema Chödrön is by far the biggest Master in my life. Today I turned to her because of a word that she uses, which was haunting me: “softening” as a recommended strategy for the in-between moments:

Anxiety, heartbreak, and tenderness mark the in-between state. It’s the kind of place we usually want to avoid. The challenge is to stay in the middle rather than buy into struggle and complaint. The challenge is to let it soften us rather than make us more rigid and afraid. – Pema Chödrön

Bruce Lee, on the other hand, seemed to me a bit like a cartoon character – right until his famous quote hit me:

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.” – Bruce Lee

All making wisdom talks about this, with different words: about playing along, if you will.

So here’s the dilemma: if you’re like water, soften into things, be “smerit” (Romanian orthodoxy word concept) and so on, how do you accomplish goals, purposes, missions? I know, wisdom will guide you…what if you’re not there, in the zone of wisdom? We can always use our intuition, which is the closest thing we’ve got to wisdom…

…or, today’s WOW moment: what if we simply don’t set goals, purposes, missions? What if we only allow our intuition to say yes to all opportunities that put our talents to good use while filling our hearts with happiness? And, instead of hardening up in order to evade the most feared state humans can live, i.e. confusion, we simply wait into it, curious about the paths that will certainly open? Then follow them until we reach the wisdom zone 🙂

MY DAILY WOW: good things are usually random – case in point, to celebrate the World Kindness Day

When we plan things, we use our pre-frontal brain. We think.

When we use our intuition to take “random” decisions and “just do” things, we use our whole self. Which is the smarter version of ourselves.

We sometimes can be kind out of thinking. But it’s rarely the utmost kindness…because it stems from self-interest and intellectualization, which means that unless you’re an accomplished Buddha, you’ll not do an amazing job. Because your planned kindness is not backed-up by wisdom – the one that matters. Sometimes helping is not helpful.

But it’s always WOW how beautifully things fall into their place with random acts of kindness. Simply put, by just staying in the kindness zone, mentally, and only kindness can spread from there…towards yourself (that should always come first!) and ever-living being around you. The butterfly effect will do the rest.

So I thought I could best celebrate World Kindness Day not by planning a kindness deed, but by fixing my mind in this zone. Feeling better already 😉