Contemplations

I recently got started attending temple again, and boy am I glad.  It seems that I get pulled away from my path more easily than I would like to admit.  I've been going through some tough times, and sometimes it's easier to feel sorry for myself instead of work through it.  Undoubtedly, every time I log into temple (its a physical group in California that also broadcasts online) the topic is something that hits home. 

Here are a few things that have really gotten me thinking recently. 

The yin/yang partner of love is not hate, but fear.
This is something that really speaks to me, as someone who has battled anxiety for some time, fear is a very real emotion that is felt every day.  The point was made that hate almost always comes from fear in some way, which I find mostly true as well.  It really got me thinking because if I am fearing something, I am doing the opposite of loving it.  I try to walk a path of love, so this is jarring, thinking that I am perpetuating the opposite.

The Tao Te Ching can be interpreted in a personal manner.
On the surface, this is something I already knew, but hadn't thought of in this specific context.  They took the first verse of the Tao Te Ching and applied it directly to you as an individual.  This is possible because the book is about the Tao, and the Tao is part of all of us, therefore each statement is about us.  Pretty deep, I know, so it got me thinking.

You are responsible for everything that happens to you.
This one is really hard for me to swallow, mainly because of the tough times I am experiencing with starting a family.  I feel so incredibly helpless in this area, it seems preposterous to say I am responsible for what is happening to me.  They explained that it is not so much that I am always in control, because some things are out of my control.  The thing I can control is my reaction to what happens, therefore I am responsible for that.

So these are the things I'm thinking about at the moment.  Feeling very contemplative.