{"id":168,"date":"1992-09-01T01:50:34","date_gmt":"1992-09-01T01:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/?p=168"},"modified":"2013-12-01T15:29:39","modified_gmt":"2013-12-01T15:29:39","slug":"blues-aint-nothing-but-a-good-soul-feeling-bad-0901","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/?page_id=168","title":{"rendered":"09\/01"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BluesAintNothingBookCover\"<\/a>We waste too much time immersed in anxiety about whether we are good or bad. We\u2019d be better off expending our energy on simply taking care of all that needs doing. A tale is told of a young Buddhist monk who worried a lot. While walking through the forest to return to his monastery, he came upon and old Zen master. Delighted to have found an audience for his obsessions, he tried to strike up a conversation with the seemingly carefree older man.<\/p>\n

The young monk talked a great deal, mostly about himself. The old man listened and smiled, but didn\u2019t seem to have much to say. Then the young man declared, \u201cI became a monk to attain spiritual<\/abbr> enlightenment. For a long while, I was afraid I would never attain a saintly attitude, but my years of service have paid off and now I have become quite humble.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about you?\u201d he asked the old man. \u201cAre you humble?\u201d<\/p>\n

After a few minutes, the master replied, \u201cI don\u2019t really know. I\u2019ve never thought much about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In our right pocket we need to keep one reminder: \u201cFor my sake God created the universe,\u201d and in our left pocket another: \u201cI am dust and ashes.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We waste too much time immersed in anxiety about whether we are good or bad. We\u2019d be better off expending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-168","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P2R4NI-2I","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1560,"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/168\/revisions\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goodsoul.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}