“In the way that a gardener knows how to transform compost into flowers,
we can learn the art of transforming anger, depression, and discrimination into love and understanding.
This is the work of meditation.”
Thich Nhat Hanh from “Touching Peace”
When was the last time you sat quietly and listened to your mind? For 30 minutes? An hour or two?
I make use of my cleaning time with the villa to practice what is known as mindfulness. Yesterday, I cleaned for 6 hours, without podcasts on my ipod, no music or television on in the background. Around 2:00, I found myself needing a cocktail. This was a sign to me that something was going on that I needed to pay close attention to.
I recall a meditation offering by Andrea Fella. A good way to begin mindfulness practice is to work with a list of emotions. Pick one. And keep dropping it into your mind every now and again as you clean, and see what comes up for you.
I’d unwittingly done this for myself as I wrote my post yesterday. Just as soon as I honestly felt I held no grudges, grudges began to surface!! Oh no!! There they were, lurking in the dark recesses of my mind. But I was aware and available to myself, who was hurting.
This is what Christ meant when he said “love thy neighbor as thyself” or the Buddha saying “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection.” How can we be loving if we do not know love in ourselves?
Buddha said further:
Searching all directions
with one’s awareness,
one finds no one dearer
than oneself.
In the same way, others
are fiercely dear to themselves.
So one should not hurt others
if one loves oneself.
I wrote to a friend, whom I know would understand. She too, works with loving her scared, abandoned child-self. We all have this child inside, if we only offer her quiet time to surface. She is our shadow self, disguised as grudges. She’s waiting for us to love her.
Sogyal Rinpoche writes in Glimpse of the Day:
“Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous, demanding, hysterical, calculating; the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom you have only rarely heard or attended to. As you listen more and more to the teachings, contemplate them, and integrate them into your life, your inner voice, your innate wisdom of discernment, what we call in Buddhism “discriminating awareness,” is awakened and strengthened, and you begin to distinguish between its guidance and the various clamorous and enthralling voices of ego. The memory of your real nature, with all its splendor and confidence, begins to return to you. You will find, in fact, that you have uncovered in yourself your own wise guide, and as the voice of your wise guide, or discriminating awareness, grows stronger and clearer, you will start to distinguish between its truth and the various deceptions of the ego, and you will be able to listen to it with discernment and confidence.”
Finally, I handed my grudge over to God before I went to sleep. I asked God “What do I do with it”. Bury it? Bring it up to the next chakra into speech?? The answer, which woke me up in the middle of the night was:
“Look, See, Listen.”
As I googled those words this morning, I was brought to a beautiful story in Hebrew entitled “Look, See, Listen, Hear and Prophesy”. It’s the story of Elijah and Elisha and the Chariot of Fire. http://www.xpmedia.com/article/12281/look-see-listen-hear-and-prophesy
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Like most of us who have been wounded by an enemy or betrayed by a close friend, our first instinct, like that of the king’s is to kill our enemies when they are delivered into our hands …..
Then the king of Israel when he saw his enemies, said to Elisha, “My father, shall I kill them? Shall I kill them?”
Elisha answered, “You shall not kill them. You shall respond according to the greatness of God’s loving-kindness, to make your enemies the objects of compassion in the presence of all their captors.”
Elisha encouraged the king to feed the Arameans, to provide for and care for his enemies instead of killing them. The king prepared a feast for the enemy soldiers and they ate to their fill.
“Set bread and water before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master.” So he prepared a great feast for them; and when they had eaten and drunk he sent them away, and they went to their master. And the marauding bands of Arameans did not come again into the land of Israel.—2 Kings 6:15–23 NASB
Elisha’s mercy triumphed over judgment. Great grace leads us to victory. The King of Israel’s enemies were delivered into his hands. The King was eager to execute judgment and destroy his enemies, but the prophet carefully redirected his focus to blessing and not destruction.
Good will always triumph over evil. Love will also bring forth a better result than hate.
Never greet your enemy in the same malignant spirit. Never return evil for evil. Learn to bless instead of curse. We are not of this world, so we can not respond in the spirit of this world.
God is love so we must respond in the power of His might.
