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February 02, 2006
1st, 2nd, 4th
Life is interesting right now... some relevant passages:
One side-effect of personal development is severing relations with other persons who have not gotten around to letting us go through our changes. Changing ones mind about oneself is difficult enough but when you ask others to change their minds about you, it is then you find out who your real friends are. ... If someone cannot handle the personality change you are going through because you are updating your self-image, then it is their problem unless you make it yours, as well.
Another source of social discord is when we outgrow our present social circles and neglect to withdraw and/or find new ones. Our circle of friends constitutes our Power Elite because this network affirms and supports the person we are or want to become. Once this circle stops doing this for us, it's time to take a few steps back and review our criteria for friendship based in our present-time feelings, responses and social realities. If we don't, it's possible we'll harm ourselves and others through subliminal resentments, hidden hostilities and other emotional signals....
Until Motherhood is reclaimed, we'll be controlled by Mother types who keep beating us at this game, including our genetic Mothers. The secret of being a Mother is starting small. Nourish and take care of houseplants, then, when ready... the garden. This will tune us into the purely spiritual expression of Mothering. When ready to graduate, get an aquarium and feed the fish. If prepared to mother small mammals, hamsters do well, then cats and dogs. By this time, there will have been enough actual practice for the rest of ourselves to catch on. ... If all of this sounds just too "maternal" to do, feel free to continue projecting "Mother" unwittingly onto your friends and lovers until it's time to get it together.
– Angel Tech, by Antero Alli
[The fourth mantra] — “Darling, I am suffering. Please help.” Only six words, but sometimes they are difficult to say because of the pride in our hearts, especially if it was the person we love whom we believe caused us to suffer. If it had been someone else, it would not be so hard. But because it was him, we feel deeply hurt. We want to go to our room and weep. But if we really love him, when we suffer like that, we have to ask for help. We must overcome our pride.
There is a story that is well-known in my country about a young couple who suffered deeply because of pride. The husband had to go off to war, and he left his pregnant wife behind. Three years later, when he was released from the army, his wife came to the village gate to welcome him, and she brought along their little boy. When the young couple saw each other, they could not hold back the tears of joy. They were thankful to their ancestors for protecting them, and the young man asked his wife to go to the marketplace to buy some fruit, flowers, and other offerings to place on the ancestors’ altar.
While she was shopping, the young father asked his son to call him Daddy, but the little boy refused. “Sir, you are not my daddy! My daddy used to come every night, and my mother would talk to him and cry. When mother sat down, daddy also sat down. When mother lay down, my daddy lay down.” Hearing these words, the young father’s heart turned to stone.
When his wife returned, he could not even look at her. The young man offered fruit, flowers, and incense to the ancestors, made prostrations, and then rolled up the bowing mat and did not allow her to do the same. He believed that she was not worthy to present herself in front of the ancestors. Then he walked out of the house and spent his days drinking and walking about the village. His wife could not understand why he was acting like that. Finally, after three days, she could bear it no longer, and she jumped into the river and drowned herself.
The evening after the funeral, when the young father lit the kerosene lamp, his little boy shouted, “There is my daddy!” He pointed to his father’s shadow projected on the wall and said, “My daddy used to come every night just like that, and my mother would talk to him and cry a lot. When my mother sat down, he sat down. When my mother lay down, he lay down.” “Darling, you have been away for too long. How can I raise our child alone?” she cried to her shadow. One night the child asked her who and where his father was. She pointed to her shadow on the wall and said, “This is your father.” She missed him so much.
Suddenly the young father understood, but it was too late. If he had gone to his wife and asked “Darling, I suffer so much. Our little boy said a man used to come every night and you would talk to him and cry with him, and every time you sat down, he also sat down. Who is that person?” she would have had an opportunity to explain and avert the tragedy. But he did not because of the pride in him.
The lady behaved the same. She was deeply hurt because of her husband’s behavior, but she did not ask for his help. She should have practised the fourth mantra, “Darling, I suffer so much. Please help. I do not understand why you will not look at me or talk with me. Why didn’t you allow me to prostrate before the ancestors? Have I done anything wrong?” if she had done that, her husband could have told her what the little boy said. But she did not, because she, too, was caught in pride.
In true love, there is no place for pride. When you are hurt by the person you love, when you suffer and believe your suffering has been caused by the person you love the most, remember this story. Do not act like the father or mother of the little boy. Do not let pride stand in your way. Practice the fourth mantra: “Darling, I am suffering. Please help.” If you really consider him to be the one you love the most in this life, you have to do that. When he hears your words, he will come back to himself and practice looking deeply. Then the two of you will be able to sort things out, reconcile, and dissolve the wrong perception.
– Teachings on Love, by Thich Nhat Hanh
Posted by Josh A. at February 2, 2006 12:53 AM
Comments
Thich Nhat Hanh rocks the house.
Posted by: Ari Moore at February 2, 2006 06:01 AM