when you love someone you love them not
only despite their fragility but also
because of it
they wouldn't be who they were if they
weren't fragile and limited in their
particular way when you have a sick kid
it's like oh my god how can the world be
constituted so that a child can unfairly
suffer in this manner you can't have
them being vulnerable and cute and
interesting and and small and needing
care but striving to develop and grow
without them also being prone to pain
and destruction and vulnerability and
then what do you do teach them to be
strong that's what you do you don't get
rid of the vulnerability you teach them
to be strong you don't protect your
children in fact you do you do the
opposite you expose them to the world as
much as you possibly can and you make
them strong that's the best antidote to
their vulnerability the first noble
truth of Buddhism life is suffering this
is true and it's worse than that because
it's suffering contaminated by
malevolence and so that's very
pessimistic but the optimistic part is
that you are so damn tough you can
actually not only deal with that oh well
that's a horrible situation but it turns
out that I'm armed for the task
that's that's a great thing for people
to know I think the fact that we're
armed for the task is even more true
than the fact that life is catastrophe
contaminated by malevolence we're
stronger than things are terrible and I
do believe it's the case because I've
watched people do very difficult things
like people who work in palliative care
Ward's so all they're ever dealing with
is pain and death right and they can do
it and get up in the morning they go to
work and they take care of those people
they lose people on a weekly basis and
yet they can do it and what that shows
is that if you turn around and you
confront the suffering voluntarily you
find out that you are way tougher than
you think it's not that life is better
than you think
life is as harsh as you think it might
even be worse but you are way tougher
than you think if you turn around and
confront it it's a very good thing to
know and it's not naive optimism it's a
very different thing it's like no things
are terrible they're brutal and you are
so damn tough
you can't believe it
you
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