--- budha7up <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Another thing is I am upset about a person .I
> trusted him ,gave some
> money to him and he
> cheated me.I am hurt although I know I should not..
> Can somebody give me a sugestion to come out it ..
> Love for everybody..budha7up
Zen founder, Boddhidharma, taught that one can solve
it in two ways:
1. Through the principle
2. Through the practice
If through #1, just let your mind abide nowhere.
If that's not possible, you need to slip into #2.
There, you need to do four practices:
1. Accepting karmic retributions
2. Adapting to conditions
3. No seeking
4. Merging with the Dharma
The first practice is reactive. The second is
proactive. The third is detached. The fourth is
indescribable.
These four tend to go sequentially. In other words,
you cannot skip steps (or else you'd be a 'step
skipper').
For now, focus only on step #1 -- Accepting karmic
retributions. This practice will lead you a long way
towards calming yourself.
Start very simple. Imagine the following scenario: you
get home after work, and find an enveloope in your
mailbox. You open it, and find in it an invoice from
your utility company. The invoice informs you that you
owe $100.00 for the past two months.
Ask yourself the following: is this event advantageous
for you? Probably not. After all, you owe $100.00 to
someone. Not a good situation.
Still, do you freak out? No, not really. This is
because you realize *why* is it that you owe them this
much money. You recall how you went to their office,
asked for the utility services to be activated at your
house, and have been using running water/electricity
for some time now (I'm stating the obvious here, but
hear me out).
Because you understand why is it that you owe the
utility company some money, you don't take the hit
very hard.
Now, if all of a sudden you get hit by a debt to be
paid, and you don't understand why do you owe that
party some money, you would get seriously upset.
So, the trick is in knowing, in understanding why is
the debt here. You need to see how was the debt
created in the first place.
Of course, at first, when you get hit by some
unexplicable event, such as someone cheating you,
robbing you, hurting you, you can't see why is this
debt there. Who created it? And when?
That's why Boddhidharma advised that we *practice*
accepting karmic retributions. Meaning, even if we
don't see clearly, even if we can't understand why has
this debt (monetary, or in the form of an illness
etc.) hit us, we should still strive to treat it as if
it is something we did before, and now the time has
come to pay for it.
Not only that, but we should actually be joyous that
we have enough merit at our disposal to pay that debt
off. Instead of being merely resigned to the painful
fact of life, we should rejoice, knowing that a big
burden is now lifted off our shoulders.
But that's not all. Imagine now that you go to the
bank, and check your account status. Imagine finding
that you have $1,000.00 on your bank account. That's
great, that's a lot of money!
Do you then rush out of the bank and start dancing on
the streats, being delirious because you all of a
sudden have this much money? No, because you recall
that it was you, who went out and got a job, and
worked hard, and got a paycheck deposited to your
account.
In a similar manner, when something nice, something
advantageous happens to us, we shouldn't lose our
cool. We should strive to understand that we are
merely reaping the consequences of our previous
actions. Wholesome actions bring forth the same kinds
of results, unwholesome actions bring forth
unwholesome results.
If you can maintain this faith and be persistent in
your practice, you'll be able to advance and delve
into your calmer side, where things start looking much
clearer. Eventually, you'll be able to see that
nothing ever happens to you without a reason.
Once you realize that, you'll be able to interpret
disadvantageous events as being basically all right.
Not advantageous to you, not disadvantageous, just all
right. That way, you'll abstain from creating harsh
karma, which will ease the burden of your practice.
Then, you'll penetrate the teaching much faster.
You'll be able to jump into step # 2, "Adapting to
conditions".
Alex
=====
No karma was produced during the composition of this letter
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page.
www.yahoo.com
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
$9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/S27xlB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right
Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
