Forgiveness is not forgetfulness

A friend realised something rather amusing yet enlightening. He became a more forgiving person when he realised that he had been letting himself off again and again, readily forgiving himself for his own misdeeds to others big and small, while being easily unforgiving and grudge-bearing towards others for their little mistakes. He realised how fat his ego was. It was as if he alone had all the right in the world to be wrong and forgiven, while the rest of the world should do him no slight wrong.

Being a forgiving person is part of the path of practice towards Enlightenment. Forgiveness liberates both pain and guilt. It unties knots of tensed negative karma, stops ill seeds from growing into greater hatred. Being unforgiving is nurturing our sense of hatred - which is no less than one of the three poisons that keep us swirling in Samsara's vicious cycles.

However, forgiving another does not mean we allow the same wrong to be repeated. We have to realise that while it could be our negative karma that we are wronged, we should put in the effort to prevent the person who did us wrong from doing more harm, creating more negative karma for himself.  By being complacent, we could well be creating more negative karma for ourselves! Remember - forgiveness is "for giving".  It is a gift of reassurance - it sets both parties' hearts and minds at peace.

The Daily Enlightenment - Ambidexterity

Perhaps all enlightened beings are perfectly ambidextrous. To be ambidextrous means to have equal efficient ease of using both hands. Most of us are only either right-handed or left-handed. This physical bias of ease in control and strength comes from habitual one-sided mental biasness.

There is the belief that right-handed people tend to be more one-track-minded and rational while the left-handed are more creative and emotional. How does an enlightened being come into the picture? He is evolved spiritually, and thus physically (as "mind over matter"), to perfection. So, His rational and emotional aspects are equally perfected as Wisdom and Compassion respectively. He is a balanced individual with no unhealthy biasness in body or mind. So He is ambidextrous!

We all have our personal particular "handedness" or biasness mentally and physically. Being a right-hander does not mean you are more "normal" than a left-hander. In a sense, both are equally unbalanced. We should learn to be more and more balanced mentally, without any form of prejudices. The attempt to balance is the practising the Middle Path itself.

Sean'ice in Chains

Is there something that binds you?
Or is the thought that you are bound
that which binds you?

You are not bound by any chains now.
Only your thoughts bind you -
there are no metal chains, only mental ones.

Any mental chains have to be broken,
let go of, by mental effort.

Die Young

How do you train yourself to truly live your life?

Train your "self" to die
before your actual death.

With the death of the egoistic self,
comes freedom in this very life.

The Daily Enlightenment - Book One: Reflections for the Practising Buddhists

Life is meaningless
in the sense that there is no obligatory purpose in life.
Death is meaningless
in the sense that there is no specific purpose in death.

This means that
the only meaningful thing to do,
is to get out of life and death,
out of the cycle of rebirth,
towards Enlightenment, liberation.

Only when we are liberated
can we effectively help to liberate other beings.

Idea Creation

Impulses of intelligence constantly create the body in new forms every second. - Deepak Chopra..

Think on These Things

Think on These Things for Monday, December 03, 2007

"Think on This ... . . the church is within yourself and not in any pope nor preacher, nor in any building but in self! For thy body is indeed the temple of the living God, and the Christ becomes a personal companion in mind and in body; dependent upon the personality and individuality of the entity as it makes practical application of the tenets and truths that are expressed.

Edgar Cayce Reading 5125-1"