The prison of moodiness

One must be able to remain free of the prison of moodiness – the infantile tendency to the three Ss: sulkiness, sullenness, and surliness.  We employ these three out of resentment that life is not what we feel it should be according to what is fair and just in relation to ‘ME’.

p19, Emailing the Lamas from Afar, Ngakpa Chögyam and Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-9653948-5-7

There is no life-dissatisfaction appeals tribunal

   When we start to find some event in life painful or when we have experienced a series of calamities, it is helpful to avoid involvement in the ‘unfairness game’.  If you say: “This is unfair!  I don’t deserve this!” you only succeed in increasing your pain. It would be better to side-step this frustration and confusion, simply by saying: “This is what is happening”. There is no consumer-protection society in the sky to whom you can appeal. There is no life-dissatisfaction appeals tribunal where you can demand: “Life isn’t what I expected, I want my money back!” This is it. This is what we have. Fair or unfair, our situation is what it is, right here and now: in any context you can imagine…  It is the texture of your experience, and you cannot disown it. You can only ‘try’ to disown it, by creating a more complex level of confusion around it.’

p92-93, Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngakpa Chögyam with Khandro Déchen, Aro Books, 1997, ISBN 0-9653948-0-8