Up to the Challenge?
You might think that big problems, harmful people or difficult situations have come to bring you down but they have not! They are there to challenge your strength. They are not just there to test your strength, but to test your commitment to evolutionary development. Will you fold at the first sign of trouble? That would not show much of a commitment. It is a big commitment to accumulate the vast stores of merit for the benefit of all sentient beings. Those who bring you harm are actually a kind of treasure come to test your capacity to accumulate merit for awakening. Do not give up! Your commitment to gain merit that you absolutely need should not depend upon the hope that nobody comes to take you down. That would be operating under the basis of fear. ‘I hope nothing bad happens today; otherwise I am going to meditate …but if anything happens, I know that I won’t be able to meditate properly.’ Are you just waiting for something to happen? ‘If so-and-so says one word to me, I know