At the beginning of your day when you wake up, express your aspiration: "May I practice the three difficulties. May I see what I do. When it happens, may I do something different, and may that be a way of life for me." At the beginning of your day, using your own language, you could encourage yourself to keep your heart open, to remain curious no matter how difficult things get. Then at the end of the day when you're just about to go to sleep, review the day. Rather than using what happened as ammunition for feeling bad about yourself, about how the whole day went by and you never once remembered what you had aspired to do in the morning, you can simply use it as an opportunity to get to know yourself better and to see all the funny ways in which you trick yourself, all the ways in which you're so good at zoning out and shutting down. If you feel like you don't want to practice the three difficulties anymore because it's like setting yourself up for failure, generate a kind heart toward yourself. Reflecting over just one day's activities can be painful, but you may end up respecting yourself more, because you see that a lot happened; you weren't just one way. As Carl Jung said at the end of his life, "I am astonished, disappointed, pleased with myself. I am distressed, depressed, rapturous. I am all these things at once and cannot add up the sum."

From START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Chdrn, 1994.
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.