With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning I am working on myself. It is difficult to feel angry and hurt. The experience is unpleasant. So, such feelings are important practice opportunities. For this post, it is NOT important who or what brought about these feelings. What is important is how I encounter them.
I spent the night last night considering these feelings. I avoided by playing online chess. I engaged in several ways. I wrote several letters I did not send. I talked with Soku Shin. I talked with a colleague. I practiced Zazen. I have decided this morning to take the high road.
What does this mean? To me it means not picking apart the one that hurt me or assailing him and hurting him in return. It does mean engaging my desire to do just that and processing it in ways so that it can be released and the negative energy integrated. It means I must be willing to see the suffering of this individual and see how we might share the same suffering at different times.
I practiced a giving and receiving practice, using the poison of his anger to counter the poisonous hurt arising in my heart. As my hurt transforms into compassion, albeit very, very slowly, I release it and offer it to him.
I wonder, though, selflessness in practice leaves the traces of us vulnerable to further injury. I tell myself to let that concern go. Yet, I have set myself aside in service to this individual for years and received his injuries over and over. I must work to obliterate the traces.
The most troubling aspect for me is that this person has no clue as to the harm he does. He appears arrogant. He appears self-serving. He seems unwilling to learn for himself about himself. While I have learned much from him, my lessons have been the lessons of reflection on the feelings evoked in his presence. May I work to put these to the best use possible.
Be well,
Daiho
Good Morning Everyone,
This morning I am working on myself. It is difficult to feel angry and hurt. The experience is unpleasant. So, such feelings are important practice opportunities. For this post, it is NOT important who or what brought about these feelings. What is important is how I encounter them.
I spent the night last night considering these feelings. I avoided by playing online chess. I engaged in several ways. I wrote several letters I did not send. I talked with Soku Shin. I talked with a colleague. I practiced Zazen. I have decided this morning to take the high road.
What does this mean? To me it means not picking apart the one that hurt me or assailing him and hurting him in return. It does mean engaging my desire to do just that and processing it in ways so that it can be released and the negative energy integrated. It means I must be willing to see the suffering of this individual and see how we might share the same suffering at different times.
I practiced a giving and receiving practice, using the poison of his anger to counter the poisonous hurt arising in my heart. As my hurt transforms into compassion, albeit very, very slowly, I release it and offer it to him.
I wonder, though, selflessness in practice leaves the traces of us vulnerable to further injury. I tell myself to let that concern go. Yet, I have set myself aside in service to this individual for years and received his injuries over and over. I must work to obliterate the traces.
The most troubling aspect for me is that this person has no clue as to the harm he does. He appears arrogant. He appears self-serving. He seems unwilling to learn for himself about himself. While I have learned much from him, my lessons have been the lessons of reflection on the feelings evoked in his presence. May I work to put these to the best use possible.
Be well,
Daiho
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