“There is a story of how the Buddha once gave a talk to hundreds of monks, only to have them disagree and walk out on him. Did the Buddha then try to spin his message to get high approval ratings and win the monks over? No – he stood by his teaching rather than trying to make his talk more agreeable to his audience. Did he take the monks’ response personally? If he had, the conflict could have driven the monks away for good. The Buddha instead trusted that if the monks found his words valuable, they would return. And they did.
When we crave approval, we may never find our authentic voice or establish honest relationship. As Lao Tzu taught, Care about people’s approval and you will be their prisoner. Trusting your feelings, though, does not mean bludgeoning another over the head with your version of truth. Being genuine is not about winning or losing.”
Donald Altman, in “The Mindfulness Code”
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Jeff Maziarek, author of Spirituality Simplified and Codi’s Journey, launched Pondercentral.com in April 2007 as a Web-based forum for “PONDER on THIS,” a series of weekday inspirational email messages he began sending to subscribers in March 1999. A FREE service since its inception, “PONDER on THIS” provides subscribers with meaningful content to assist them on their individual paths of spiritual growth. In addition, it benefits subscribers, authors, and publishers by including links to Amazon.com where subscribers can learn more about the book being quoted, and also purchase it.
