from out of nowhere, someone wrote to me:
It is amazing how a person can practice the paramitas, and still have a massive negative response.
In any case, whatever may arise, I have always talked with integrity and a loving heart, so I regret none of it.
You might be able to tell me what it is about me that causes such responses.
Feel under no obligation, but I have had communication difficulties for a long time, and if you could identify what it is about me that causes such a reaction, I would be grateful, because I honestly do not understand what it is.
Do I cross the line, and share too much of myself, and people cannot deal with how well I know myself?
In any case, take it easy, and if people are still sizzling for Gods know what reason, tell them there is no reason.
Sometimes, I think Zen has a more common sense approach then what I have found elsewhere. My foundation Buddhist text is a Zen Buddhist text from Japan. My master went by another book, something “the Compassionate Buddha” a mass market paperback, and we had no gulf of understanding.
Perhaps I should just use the simple, and let others go where they will.
In any case, I thank you for your friendship, compassion, and our positive interchanges that we have always had.
initially, i responded with:
well, i don’t know you, but i know myself as seen in you. perhaps that will be helpful, perhaps not. i’ll think on it and write more when it is more clear if it will be helpful. in the meantime, thank you for the trust of asking and the honor of seeing enough of you in me to find it a worthwhile effort. (smile)
but, upon thought and some time, felt that being asked at all likely meant there was something i should say beyond this. so i set myself to a mindful effort:
ok. thought has occurred and small time has passed and perhaps there is something helpful i can lend.
so far as i can see or insofar as i’ve read — there is never a point at which the actions of the surrounding world become less than as they are, for the world is full of suffering sentient beings and that is its nature. which means there will never be a point at which negative responses cease.
it occurs to me that if you truly did not regret things, you would not have the need to mention that you do not regret them. it is odd, but often true, that equanimity most often seems like arrogance to the rest of the world. i suppose because everyone is busy assuming you’re like them, that your ghosts are the same as theirs, and projecting their ego and pride and [insert trait here] at you… then being [insert trait here] when you either are not as expected or prove to have no convenient handles by which to be held, turned, controlled, or manipulated.
perhaps there are things of you that you cannot yet see which bring impediment in relations. if there are, surely i cannot see them and even if i could, i can think of no benefit in pointing them out to you if you cannot see them for yourself. i’ve yet to see even a dog learn what to do by being kicked… and it seems to me that constraining and refraining are not the tools of becoming, but of avoidance. we are what we are in any moment, yes?
on the other hand, i’d not be so quick to think you know yourself so well… seeing as you’re asking me to tell you something about yourself that you cannot see… something that puzzles you so deeply that you are willing to ask another to point at it so you might see it at all. perhaps this is the lesson, perhaps only a distraction. hard to say.
perhaps understanding that it is not yours to let others go where they will or to keep them from doing so? or perhaps merely understanding that pondering others and their inability, or even your own in relation to them is still the subject-object relation that ultimately impedes.
i suppose the reason they call it practice is because it is practice until we’re perfect. (smile) if so, i suspect the real trial is not obtaining perfection, but learning how to be content with practice.
and maybe, just maybe… that is the perfection after all. which would be ironic, wouldn’t it?