Cloudscape

Any vice will become a virtue through detachment. Vanity turns into pride, greed turns into ambition, anger into fervor, and so forth. It seems that all vice is caused by attachment. The beauty of this is that through detachment, vice still retains its original energy, but it is counterbalanced by its opposite, so that there detachment. In this realization, there can be no attraction towards vice, as whatever beauty it has, there remains once it is combined with peace, but it is then enabled to grow.

But attachment is also a form of ignorance, or rather, it is caused by it: attachment is caused by the unawareness of its own destruction. One might, however, know that one causes destruction but not actually be aware of it. No one could cause another destruction while being fully aware of it, for in being fully aware of it it would be as though they were doing it to themselves; but neither could they do it to themselves in that case, for to be fully aware of that destruction, they would also have to be fully aware of the creation that could oppose it, and so could not but choose for the latter, for the beauty of creation, if one is fully aware of it, is far more attractive than destruction. Any attraction of destruction falls away in the full awareness of creation.

With the words "creation" and "destruction," I mean to denote "good" and "evil" without the ring of judgment.

See also:

Positive and Negative

If you have become too so absorbed in your thoughts that you can no longer feel, the only way you can feel again is by letting go off control. Ironically, you have to let go off control to regain control over your thoughts.

With letting go off control, I do not mean that you become passive to everything that happens, but that you accept it. You might still change those things, but it will no longer be because you think you have to. Change things because you feel you want to, not merely because you think you must. Thought is a medium through which change is organized, but the motivation for change originates from our feelings.

The irony is that through acceptance, you may become much better in changing things than through rejecting them, since it allows you to build from the things that are already there, rather than seeking to undo them before starting over. Everything can be used to build something else, even if it is its opposite.

In order to be in control, you must control your need for control. Do not be attached to control, for this is in itself loss of control.

When you are in sadness, try to let go of attachment as much as possible: let go of greed, of anger, of fear. Let go of all things you tell yourself that must or must not be. Letting go of attachment is easier when sad, and in this way, sadness can come to its use. It can thus cleanse your being from impurities and, like winter, creates an emptiness from which new life can grow in spring. The faster you are able to let go, the less painful your sadness will feel, and the quicker it can also pass. Thus, do not resist sadness, but try to make use of it until it is gone. The use of sadness is to make one let go how things go, not as a punishment when things do not go your way. In your sadness, let go off all control and let everything be. Thus, it will come to its use.

Sometimes the best thing you can do when you are in sadness is to make use of your sadness' purification abilities, and the best way to do this is to turn inwards. Meditation, or, if you are religious, prayer, can be a good way to do this. In your sadness, you are more able to let go of control, thereby creating an emptiness within yourself. Learn to appreciate the silence this brings, and in that silence try to find grace.

Above all, when you are sad, think about what you want to do with your life. Sadness is an emptiness which creates a panorama within your mind. Hear the silence. See the darkness. Feel the cold. In this emptiness, find purity. Once you have done this, your sadness has served its purpose, and the light may come back once again.

Love, in its earliest form, still as a germ, usually inevitably comes with attachment, and so fear, and ultimately hatred for anything that threatens that which we are attached to, and these remain until our love has become perfected. Usually, it is only if our love grows steadily, so that it grows already being close to perfection, it does not cause attachment. Attachment arises when our love grows faster than we can deal with.

Perhaps we can so see the evil within us, in the form of fear and hate, at least in part, as a good sign. It means that we are growing, and that we are growing fast. That we hate means that we love, and that we love so much that we are prepared to make the sacrifice of suffering for it. When we make this sacrifice, we must bear it, however, and not impose it upon others; it is our own burden. Others did not choose to share in it.

It is, in fact, easy to get rid of all suffering, but only if one gives up one's love. Love, once found, however, is so strong that one rarely finds the force to dispose of it again, unless one has descended into extreme tendencies of self-destruction, such as drug addiction.

Life is as hard as you are willing to make it. Life will never be easy unless you make it so. Remember this when you are suffering. It is the cross you bear to love. You can always be freed of it if you give up that love, and stop caring about anything in unfeeling emptiness. To suffer, until you are perfected, is your own choice.

Suffering, it itself, is not necessary to grow. But nonetheless, that we are suffering means that we are growing. It means that we have not given up, and that we are trying. For failure is always also a sign of success.

See also:

Change and Sameness

It is only when one stops trying to resist one's sadness that one can be free.

Everything is relative. Nothing by itself is good or bad, small or large. For example, the Earth is large compared to our body, but small compared to the sun. Many have heard such rhetoric before, but it goes much farther than that; as another example, a sociopath may be cruel compared to the average person, but kind compared to Hitler, and in a world where almost everyone would be a cruel as Hitler, sociopaths would be Saints.
When we judge something, it is not by itself true, and therefore meaningless; for this reason, judgment has no use. Judging something, be it as good or bad, is the cause of attachment, which in turn is the cause of all suffering.
There is nothing that does not depend on subjective experience; the only absolute truth, then, is subjective experience itself, although it only is for some people, and sometimes for only one. True is only that which is experienced, that which has been experienced and that which will be experienced.
What one will experience in future depends on the causality of that experience. For instance, if one will put one's hand in a fire, one will get burned. If one jumps up, one will come back down. We know things like these because we have experienced it before.
Furthermore, if other people say something, it is sometimes, but not always, true: for instance, your mother might have told you that you will get burned if you put your hand in the fire. In this case, you have not experienced it before, but you have experienced that when you are a child, it is often best to listen to your mother. As another example, scientists might have told you that certain medicines aid against certain diseases. You have not experienced this, but they have experienced it through experiments. In this way, much of human experience can be shared by all humanity.
Any thought that is not practical, however, is pointless. But thought may have another practical use except for predicting causations; thought may help us to imagine things. Through thought we can create an entirely different world within our minds, the world of concepts. Knowledge is not only something we memorize, and ideas aren't just things that we think; both are also things that we experience. If we could not experience these things, they would be quite uninteresting. But thoughts are more than just tools; they are patterns which have their own beauty. In a way, notions are experienced in a way similar to sensations, but less vividly.
We could classify thought in three categories:

1) Judgmental thoughts
2) Causal thoughts
3) Conceptual thoughts

Of these, the first is the most common, followed by the second and third in that order. Conceptual thought is beautiful in itself, in the same way that anything else we experience can be, such as a flower or a sunset; causal thought is not beautiful in itself but is useful, meaning that it may lead us to greater beauty (but also to lesser beauty, when it is used to destroy rather than create). Judgmental thought, however, mostly impairs the quality of our lives.
When you realize that everything is relative and so nothing by itself is good or bad, however, judgmental thought, which is in effect attachment, starts to disappear. Finding it to be unneeded, you slowly let it go over time. It is an immense liberation when you find that there is no need to see anything good or bad, and that you can therefore just experience it.
Try to pay attention when you have judgment. Also, try not to judge your judgment itself. Your judgment itself is, after all, part of the current moment, just as every other pattern that is part of it; instead, try to experience even your judgment, the emotions it brings about.
Whenever you find that you judge something, try to see the relativity of whatever it is that you judge, and your judgment will no longer distract you from your experience. Judgment in itself is beautiful if that's how we see it; judgment is merely not conducive to greater beauty.
For instance, suppose a driver comes at a zebra crossing where an old man is very slowly (of course, relatively) shuffling to the other side. The driver may feel impatient and hoot, judging the old man slow. The old man may then feel annoyed, judging the driver hasty. Neither point of view is absolute. Thirty seconds may be a lot of time to cross a zebra crossing, but nothing compared to an entire day, let alone an entire lifetime.
In this way, the meaning of every word is relative. This does not mean that we can never speak the truth, however, as much of what we mean in what we speak is not said. Every statement depends on context and otherwise makes no sense at all. (For instance, the old man is slow compared to the average human we know, but we do not mention this as we assume that the other knows what context.) This is, however, more an issue of linguistics than of ontology.
However, by realizing that everything is relative one may be more able to experience is as such. This will make it easier to detach from judgment and just experience everything in itself. In our thoughts we must make comparisons; but not in our feelings.
In one's experience, the best frame of reference is that of nothing. If one compares everything in one's life, anything at all, with nothing, one will always find it to be better than nothing. Ask yourself the question: would I rather have what I have now, or rather nothing at all, though everything has its beauty? In this way, one will be more able to appreciate the value of what you already have. By thus assuming a more neutral attitude, one will enjoy more and suffer less.