The whole meditation is an extended lesson in that one question: What are you responsible for and what are you not? As you learn these lessons, you can apply them to the rest of your life as well.

"What’s actually going on in this mind-body complex? And what possibilities do you have of actually making a difference? Again, this gets into that question of what you’re responsible for and what you’re not. You are responsible for your perceptions, the labels you put on things, how you think about things, how you focus: That’s something you can do something about.

As you work with the pains in the body, sometimes you find there are things you can’t do anything about. So you learn how to accept it as really strong past karma. And your willingness to learn that lesson: That’s present karma. That’s something that’s up to you.

So the whole meditation is an extended lesson in that one question: What are you responsible for and what are you not? As you learn these lessons in the meditation, you can apply them to the rest of your life as well."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Range of Our Responsibility"

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