The Plank in Your Own Eye
Trust, Distraction, and the Root of Lack
March 10, 2023
dialogue

The Plank in Your Own Eye

La viga en tu propio ojo

The teacher reflects on how turning attention inward transformed his relationship with his father, and names the archetypal distraction that keeps us looking outward.

The Plank in Your Own Eye

The teacher reflects on how turning attention inward transformed his relationship with his father, and names the archetypal distraction that keeps us looking outward.

What also happened is that I stopped seeing my father as entirely bad. I was able to see the goodness in him, a different side, and then our relationship healed and changed.

The archetypal distraction

It reminds me of what Jesus referred to when he said: first take care of the plank in your own eye, instead of looking at the sliver in someone else's.

It's so common for us to project the problem outward.

Yes. And that is what I was pointing to in the meditation as the archetypal distraction: "I will be okay when, if only..." and then fill in the blank. That blank contains all kinds of stories. It doesn't mean I don't have to work, or that I don't have to take care of family. But "I will be okay when" is the archetypal distraction.