A giant stream of karma led me to that day, and plenty of enthusiastic self-entanglement has ensued. Seems like unskilful actions are the ones you remember most. Whatever was skilful seamlessly just becomes part of life, and you forget your own role in it.
Yesterday, it struck me: I had to do it. All of it. Including the obsession, the betrayal, the breakdowns, the pettiness, and so forth. The stupid confrontations, the being-driven-by-fear. I needed to do this stuff, and remember it, and puzzle over it. There is no other way this limited person can be forced to look at the big questions of life. When you are in the middle of crisis, or when you are ashamed of what you've done, you need to figure out what's going on, and you'll stop at nothing to find out where your compulsions are coming from. We need to study the evidence to know the answer. With no evidence, there's no thread to follow back to the dark heart of the self.
Labelling this or that action as "stupid" or "wise" indicates whether it will cause pleasure or pain. But labels cannot say whether, or how, an action will become grist for the process of self-knowledge. Vowing to understand the darkness is another action, perhaps. I love the teachings on karma: nothing is "good" or "bad", rather "this is the way to hurt yourself and others" or "this is the way to bring happiness to the world." Pain, though makes us remember the lesson learned in a way that nothing else can. And the pain we bring upon ourselves and others absolutely requires our continued attention. In the universal eye, the "wrong" action makes perfect sense. And it's necessary.
This is not to excuse bad behavior. Only to explain it, and to say that we own it like we own nothing else. My clothes, my phone, my glass can all wear out, or be lost or stolen. While my actions also are gone, they illuminate a puzzle, and their legacy of pain confers a pressing responsibility to study the puzzle. What a gift, precious and terrible.
wrathful-protector
Originally uploaded by rezendi.
1 comment:
Which leads right in to the fifth of the Five Remembrances:
"My actions are my only true belongings.
I cannot escape the consequences of my actions.
My actions are the ground on which I stand."
When I first learned the Five, I found them rather scary. Not so much now, now that I've worked with them for awhile.
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