Vulnerability can be difficult. Opening yourself up to the world, while one would think easy, is for many (myself included) sometimes an almost impossible task. Society teaches us that we must be strong, persistent, guarded, unemotional, logical…invulnerable. When this happens though, it becomes easier to ignore love, to trust people through their faults, to find a life where people can enter without being shut behind walls. A common Taoist saying goes
“The hard and mighty lie beneath the ground, While the tender and weak dance on the breeze above. (Lao Tzu)”
Modern life tries to drill this out of us, especially those who grew up among the me generation in the 80s where greed and strength were the only aspects of a person who might be respects.
Bending before the storm though is not meant to show weakness or the lack of conviction. Opening yourself to the world around you, taking a chance, loving, caring, being someone’s friend takes strength far beyond hiding away in your room or shutting yourself off from the world around you, never dealing with difficult situations. In bending, there is always the possibility of getting hurt, of loosing, of feeling…in the end though it means you also have the possibility of gaining more.
Xiong Nai Xin Retreat 
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