Life Isn’t Hard: How Comparison and Overthinking Cause Suffering
“We do only three things in life: we sit, we stand, we lie horizontal. That’s about it. Everything else is a story. Life is not difficult; it’s your thinking that makes it difficult.” (Byron Katie, A Thousand Names for Joy , p. 157) When Venerable Beopsang read this passage at the start of his Dharma talk, it really resonated with me. All we do in life is stand, sit, and lie down. That’s it. It may sound too simple to mean much. But it brought to mind a teaching the Buddha emphasized. I was surprised by the connection. When you are standing, know that you are standing. When you are sitting, know that you are sitting. When you are lying down, know that you are lying down. Photo by the author Yet in daily life, we’re often unaware of what we’re doing in the moment. Why can’t we see things as they are? We constantly assign meaning to things, judge them as good or bad, and compare ourselves with others. We do this so automatically that we hardly notice it. Ven. Beopsang pointed out that ...