Navigating Dharma and the Habits That Cause Trouble on the Way to the Next Life: Making My Way (Link #685)

Summary: Speaker: Mary Newton. Mary talks about how Dharma helps her to engage with life and its vicissitudes. While dwelling on thoughts and feelings can mire us in a samsaric mindset, they are also a means of letting go when we are able to step back and analyze them. Mary gives the poignant example of being diagnosed with cancer, and feeling that she just wanted to give up and have it all be over with. But then she recalled what Rinpoche has taught us; that what we have not faced in this life will be carried over into the next. When she finds her mind mired in suffering, Mary remembers the four immeasurables. When she's in a state of mental turmoil she derives strength, confidence and grounding by having those four specific steps to redirect her mind towards the Dharma.