"Why I sit..."

Part V (Forgiveness)

Forgiveness...that's what I wrote in my last post (Part IV). People usually have mixed feelings about forgiveness. Some understand that it heals but have difficulty in putting it to practice. Others--quite a number of them, feel that forgiving people who have hurt you, harmed you is a sign of weakness. It is a like condoning and excusing the bad behaviour or actions of the other person. Some feel that their anger towards the person harming/hurting them is justified and therefore there is nothing wrong in "righteous indignation" or righteous anger.

I understand how that feels having gone through such experiences myself. Tales of other's acts of forgiveness of their tormentors evokes mixed feelings of admiration and disbelief and some times makes you want to be able to do likewise, but yet seems an unthinkable path to follow.

"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned"

said The Buddha, and how true it is! However righteous or justified one might think our anger is, this is so true! So how do we behave with a person who has wronged us? Before we act, we need to understand ourselves first, calm ourselves down and reach a state of balance. It is a choice--and a sane and rational one.

Viktor Frankl said "Between a stimulus and a response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

We need to understand the pointlessness of reacting with anger in the face of an unpleasant situation, take a step back, calm ourselves down and the deal with the situation. This is where I found my meditation practice very useful. It helped me find the gap between the stimulus and response, it made me aware of the choices I had.

When a person says unkind things to me the initial reaction is one of anger and the training in observation of natural respiration helps me focus on my breath till I calm down. Sometimes I do nothing else but just calm down--if it is not an appropriate situation to say something back to the person, I just don't say anything.

I also realized that the person who acts in an unkind and angry manner could be doing so for many reasons. Maybe he has problems himself which I am unaware of ? His outburst of abuse may or may not be directly linked to me who was at the receiving end. If you feel/think you have done something to warrant the other's anger, the best thing would be to apologize for it. If you feel/think you have done nothing to cause his anger, the best thing would be to forgive him, because then his anger is not due to something you did, but something he is not able to handle and therefore is in need of some compassion.

Also, are we not guilty of behaving in a similar manner at some time in life ? Sometimes overcome with our cares and stresses do we not burst out in anger ? Do we not wish to be treated with compassion ourselves at such times, for mistakes we have committed?

Unfortunately, we are so immersed in our own lives and needs that we rarely think that each one is going through their own private hell. What externally appears to be a happy, successful life may not in reality be exactly that all the time. Each one of us need some love, some compassion.

The practice of Vipassana meditation opened up such avenues of thought. The discourses of Goenkaji combined with the practice enabled me to appreciate a different perspective and find value in doing so. Because by learning to forgive, I was only helping myself--I was refusing to engage in negative thoughts of the other and instead cultivating positive thoughts of compassion and unconditional love.

"Why I sit...

Part IV (Satipattana)

Sometimes the gains that I claim I had after the courses may sound exaggerated. Did I suddenly change? Did I become a different person? It may seem dramatic and unbelievable.

Maybe the word "change" is not appropriate--was I not ok before? Was there something undesirable in me that needed change? The answer is no. However, there was that feeling of unsatisfactoriness about life in general which I mentioned earlier. I had a lot of resentment accumulated over the years, a tendency towards depression, and my mood mildly melancholic. Compared to an average person I was less depressed, resentful and melancholic--but personally it was not what I wanted to be. I felt I wasn't living fully, I felt I could do better if I had my anger, sadness, anxiety under control and in better physical health as well.

It was in these directions that I changed gradually, each course providing for some incremental change. There were times when I felt I was becoming worse too. I particularly remember the Satipattana course in the summer of 2000. This is a course one could take after a minimum of 3 ten-day courses.

Satipattana means establishment in awareness, a very important part of The Buddha's teaching. This course is similar to the 10-day course with respect to the time-table and the meditation instructions but different from the chantings in the morning and the discourse in the evenings. Needless to say, it is meant for serious students who have decided that this is the path they want to follow. The morning chantings are from the Maha Satipattana Sutta and the evening discourses are an explanation of the same chantings. We were a few students --about 5-6 females doing the course. I did it with all seriousness but around the middle of the course started feeling very restless--a feeling that I might be called back home for some reason. In fact, when the dhamma sevika came to the hall one morning during our 8 am meditation hour and whispered into the teacher's ear, I was quite sure it was a call for me to get back home. Later, I found out that the unfortunate call was for my roommate, who had to leave the course--I had no means to find out the reason.

The course being done, I left for home on the last day to be greeted by an unusual reception at my parent's place. My husband had taken ill with vertigo during my absence and had to be hospitalised in Chennai. Unfortunately his close relatives chose to view the incident as being due to my negligence towards him and my family and a pre-occupation with my own interests. A lot of unkind and things were said about me and my parents. I was told that my mother was urged to call me back from the course (coincidently on the same day that I felt uneasy and restless during the course) while my father stopped her from doing so and instead decided to ascertain the facts from my husband himself first. I am extremely grateful for his thoughtful decision without which I may not have been able to complete the course.

It's about 10 years since this happened, but I remember it very distinctly because I struggled to learn to forgive the person who said nasty unkind things about me and my parents. I wanted to say a lot of unkind things to this person too--but was stopped by my friend and guide, Sabrina who tried to teach me to forgive. For many months I struggled with this incident unwilling to forgive, to let go. Those were the times when the path seemed very difficult--it was a challenge to practice what I learned in the course. It took me years--4 or 5 until my 5th course in 2005 to let go and learn to forgive.

Yes, forgiving people who have harmed you or said unkind things about you is difficult. But the entire incident helped me understand suffering and the way out of suffering. When I posted on my facebook wall recently, something on forgiveness, one friend said it was better to keep enemies away from you rather than forgive them, befriend them and find that they harm you as a friend. Another person said she agreed that forgiveness heals but it takes a long time to learn to forgive. Quite true. Most things in life which are worth learning takes time, takes patience.

As Viktor Frankl said in his book--Man's Search for Meaning, "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves"

But how does this change come about? What the subsequent intense courses taught me was that when such an incident (like the one above) occurred there was a pattern---the person (in this case the relative) said those words and the incident was over. However, I kept replaying the incident again and again in my mind, re-calling every hurting word and emotion. To this I would create an imagined response I should have given the person or may give if another opportunity arose in future. In short, I was creating a mental drama of an incident and replaying it ever so often in the stage of my mind. The incident was painful the first time it occurred and yet here I was replaying it in my mind hurting myself again and again adding a number of dialogues and counter dialogues.

Each time I recalled the incident there was a fresh wave of unpleasantness. Examining this thread bare in each of my courses, closely observing my sensations each time these thoughts came to my mind, with the understanding of impermanence (annicca) as taught by my teacher, I was able to comprehend what I was doing to myself and the way to let go, to forgive. Every thought that arises in the mind is linked to a sensation in the body. These sensations are impermanent by nature--they arise and pass away. During meditation we train ourselves to observe this reality that happens within the framework of our body. In our ignorance of the impermanent nature of the sensations we keep blindly reacting to them in everyday life, just as I was doing earlier with that painful incident. With practice I learned to observe the sensation that came up along with the thought, learned to be equanimous with the painful sensation it brought along with it and then could free myself from the negative emotions associated with it.

This requires training. Therefore sitting on the cushion motionless for about an hour was not just a test in physical endurance but in fact a training of the mind. Training to understand that what arises in the mind ( or any other part of the body) is linked to sensations experienced on the body. Additionally, learning to develop equanimity towards the sensation with the understanding of its impermanent nature-I gradually learned that all sensations I experienced were characterized by impermanence.

Ignorance of this truth of sensations causes our suffering. This realization I started applying in my day to day life. It became easier to forgive some people. When I was able to do that, it increased my confidence in interacting with people--because afterall it is the fear of hurt which becomes a barrier at times in our interactions with people.

By the time I completed my 5th 10day course in end December 2005, there was a huge leap in my understanding of what was going on within me in various situations I faced in life--particularly in my interactions with people. I was able to now regulate my emotions in a better manner, understand myself better and become more content.