As the Buddha taught, life inevitably has situations or people we will not want to encounter. This is not a problem in itself—if we simply practice how we relate to it. The content of life, the what, is always what it is at any given moment, just the fact, but it’s how we relate to that moment that will either lead us toward or away from more suffering. Easier said than done, of course—but luckily, we have our whole life to practice.

From Your Life Is Meditation by Mark Van Buren © 2020. Reprinted with permission of Wisdom Publications.