The Innocent Mistake

The innocent mistake that keeps us
caught in our own particular style of ignorance,
unkindness, and shut-downness
is that we are never encouraged to see
clearly what is, with gentleness. Instead
there’s a kind of basic misunderstanding
that we should try to be better than
we already are, that we should try to
improve ourselves, that we should try to
get away from painful things, and that if
we could just learn to get away from the
painful things, then we would be happy.
This is the innocent, naive misunderstanding
that we all share.

The problem is that the desire to change
is fundamentally a form of aggression
toward yourself. The other problem is
that our hang-ups, unfortunately or fortunately
contain our wealth.

–Pema Chodron