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The Art of Forgiveness

by

The Art of Forgiveness

I’ve always tiptoed carefully through any discussion of forgiveness with students.

Too complicated a process, I would think.

Too time-bound,

Too individual.

The heart is ready for only that which

The heart is ready for.

Not having the language or the willingness

To describe this,

To date,

I’ve mostly ignored it.

I’ve acknowledged forgiveness

Simply as

A journey, an odyssey,

Too intricate to be taught,

Too delicate to be discussed,

Too tender to be talked about too much.

Today, in my last-ditch, holy-shit-it’s-Thursday-I-don’t-have-a-blog-topic moment, I found myself trolling the internet, tired and played out and happy from traveling; life brought me to Jack Kornfeld.

I’m suspicious of teachers; I’m fussy and particular.  However, I have always known and trusted Jack’s authenticity, having seen him many a time at Kripalu.  He is an author, Buddhist practitioner and one of the key teachers to introduce Buddhist mindfulness practice to the West.

I listened to this ten-minute forgiveness meditation and found it deeply touching.

Jack offers us three directions for forgiveness;

forgiveness toward ourselves for how we’ve treated another

forgiveness toward ourselves for how we’ve treated ourselves

forgiveness, as we are ready, in our own timing, toward another for hurting us

Please join Jack in this meditation:

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/video/item/forgiveness_meditation

I 

Acknowledge

I

Have

Hurt

And

Harmed

Others.

I have hurt

And harmed

You.

I ask

Your

Forgiveness.

May I be

Forgiven,

Please

Forgive me.

~~~

Just as I have hurt others,

So, have I hurt myself.

I have betrayed

And

Abandoned

Myself.

I’ve caused

Suffering,

Me—to me.

In this moment,

I offer myself

Forgiveness

And

Tenderness.

~~~

I remember 

The many ways

You have hurt me,

Abandoned me,

Betrayed me.

To the extent

To which

I am able,

In this moment,

I turn

My heart

In the direction

Of

Forgiveness.

I release you.

I will not carry

The pain

Of hating you

In my heart,

To the extent

To which

I

Am

Able,

I

Forgive

You.

~~~

Dear Friends, how does this meditation touch you?

Which of the three directions felt more impactful?  More distant? Least possible? What did you notice?

How might you practice using the three directions as a journey of forgiveness?  What would it specifically look like for you to practice?

To the extent to which we are able, may we turn our hearts in the direction of forgiveness—to self, to another, and to all.

And—good news!  We received two-minutes-and-eight-seconds of additional sunlight today, as January slowly sheds her days.  I’m proclaiming this as a celebration.

One step, one breath, one moment at a time.

To us, all—
All blessings,
Aruni

Just Like Me

by

Just Like Me

You never know.  

You never know when you are going to hear something that wakes you up, that gets your attention, that takes away your breath.

I was minding my own business, sitting in one of my 12 Step meetings, Saturday morning.  

I love it there; more than anywhere on earth, I would choose to sit in a 12 Step meeting.  

Much to say about that; I’ll save it for another blog.

Suffice to say, there I remember.

Suffice to say, there I hear Truth.

But the meeting was almost over, and I felt done.  My thoughts were floating toward after-the-meeting tea (our code name for shared breakfast whose main ingredient is bacon) with my dear friend, Babs.

I was fading out a bit, as the prospect of bacon loomed, closer, larger.

Sue was talking.  She’s lovely and I respect her dearly.  Nevertheless, I was listening with one-and-three-quarters percent of my hearing capacity.

And then I heard It.

Then I heard the Truth.

In the midst of her sharing, Sue was saying:

“…….so terribly easy to think people are assholes………..at work………meeting with my boss…….such a loser…….”

I was in and out, almost listening, ready to sprint when the meeting ends, out the door, to be first in line for BACON.

Back to Sue:

 “…noticing myself thinking my boss was a such major asshole.  And I remembered to add, saying to myself, he’s an asshole, JUST LIKE ME!

He’s an asshole, JUST LIKE ME.”

I was riveted awake, anticipatory bacon stripped from my consciousness.

I sat upright, alive again.

Sue continued:

“…..and when I find myself mentally praising somebody, oh, she is so wonderful, so competent, look at her….whenever I notice that, I drop in the phrase, JUST LIKE ME.”

Just like me.  

I love this.

It’s so profoundly easy to feel like the only one. 

The unique, the unusual, the profoundly isolated, the victimized.

Me, all alone.

This is simply

Not

True.

We are in it together.  

We are one.

One breath, shared.

One heartbeat, divided.

One consciousness, alive.

I think of metta meditation.

Lovingkindness.

From the I, always starting with self.

To the You,

And

Then

The

We.

Please enjoy my offering of this metta meditation.  Apologies for my chirping computer in the background.

http://coacharuni.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Seekonk-Rd-2.m4a

 

~~~

Dear Friends, it is so ridiculously easy to separate out from others, to wear the robe of terminal uniqueness with such pizazz.  How easy it is to feel different, to judge, to blame, to separate.

Here’s an idea; take the “just like me” practice into your day.  Just for a day. See how it unfolds.

What do you notice?  How does it feel? Gather some data, as you check it out.

Onward to a moment of grace.  

May we each know how wonderous we really are.

All blessings,
Aruni  

All You Need

by

All You Need

All I ever wanted was to find somebody to love me.

It seems to be a lifetime effort.

I understand the dynamic that drives this need, the family narrative, feeling myself the lost child, exiled, looking for connection while hiding from the very connection I seek.

Love me.  

Love me.

No.

Just kidding.

Don’t love me.

Being a tiny little lesbian in the 1950’s without the understanding that loving women was ‘a thing’, a possible thing, a real thing, a life thing, complicated matters profoundly.

Of course.

Alcohol and drugs appeared to bridge the gap between me and other people.

Or so it seemed.

Until it didn’t.

After lifetimes of drama and assumed heartbreak fueled by addiction, sobriety quieted things down.

But still, I lived wanting somebody else to fill me up, without even knowing it.

I lived deeply believing that the only safety, security, and meaning in life would come in relationship to another. 

Without even knowing it, these beliefs drove me.

(Lesbian joke: What does a lesbian bring to her second date?  A moving van.)

Even in relationship, even in marriage, even in love, the dance of my ambivalence played out.

I’m an addict.  I will always find ways to check out, trust me.

Now I find myself, in the dawn of this new decade, remembering this core truth:

It starts inside!

Aruni, love is an inside job.

Of course, I know this.  Of course, I practice this.  Of course, I believe this.

And now, the practice deepens.

In the brilliance of reality’s relentless need to heal me and make me whole, giving me exactly the circumstances I need to continue growing, now I practice aloneness on a different, deeper level.

Rather than obsessively/compulsively looking for an external home to buy, the question becomes:

Where is my internal home?

Rather than looking to another to define me, the inquiry becomes:

Who am I, right here, right now?

Rather than forcing connection with others, the practice becomes:

In this moment, how can I best relax and support myself?

Bless our wacky, human selves!

Of course, we look to outside people, places and things to complete us.

Of course, we do.

Yet without a practiced connection to ourselves, looking outside is a slippery slope of suffering, waiting to happen.

Here is Rumi, the ecstatic poet, who says it so profoundly in this translation by Shahram Shiva, from the book, Rumi, Thief of Sleep:

This aloneness is worth more than a thousand lives.
This freedom is worth more than all the lands on earth.
To be one with the truth for just a moment,
Is worth more than the world and life itself.

Okay, great.  Self-love. Sounds right.

Yet, how do you do it?  

Doesn’t self-love sound big, hard, un-chunk-able, dense and massive?  

WTF, folks?  

What would this look like, specifically, in Great Barrington, my home?

In your home, what would self-love look like?

Let’s chunk it down.

How about one thing?  Let’s focus on just one thing.

Just one kind thing for today.

What is one kind thing you can do for yourself, today?

What is one small part of your day you can lean away from old behaviors and lean toward that which is kind, gentle, and ease-filled?

Let’s start with this song, my New Year’s offering to us.

It’s a love-song to ourselves.  Check out this very familiar song offered in a new way, from students in the Berklee College of Music

Let’s offer it onto the altar of our own heart.

Sing this song to yourself.

Let it be sung to you.

 

~~~

Dear Friends,

All blessings to us, all, on this auspicious new moment, this new day, this new year, and this new decade.  

Fueled by Grace, may we find our way forward, one breath at a time.

And when we can’t, may we find our way back with patience, tolerance, and kind-heartedness for ourselves.

We are on the journey.

All blessings, 

Aruni

Kwah Io Lanereh*

by

Kwah Io Lanereh*

*Very Beautiful

Rustling around and rumbling around, I’ve been scouring my files for something—here’s a concept—already written, something to send you all that feels relevant and current and right for Now.

My internal worker-bee rebelled—am I trying to “get off the hook” of writing for a week?

Am I slouching in my commitment to us, to our community?

Is there anything I’ve written that I appreciate enough to send on to you, my dear friends?

It’s been an interesting and somewhat amusing process; self-observation in hindsight, utilizing a current dose of strong zero-judgment.

I did find something I can almost live with.

This is something from my second book, Already Home, Stories of a Seeker.

Written in 2010, does this sound like me?

Could I have written this today, this morning, looking out at the grey day, the Christmas trees standing upright in a light covering of snow?

This is taken from a chapter called Spirit:
What do I believe in the depths of my soul, at this moment of my life?  What are my spiritual truths, my safety nets of belief that catch me as I tumble, amidst the everyday struggles of my life?  How do I navigate my way through the potential sludge of suffering that regularly awaits me?

I believe there is a spirit, a power, a grace in my life that is greater than I am and greater than my mind.  It is greater, I believe, than the human experience. This power is running the show, determining my reality. Call it God, call it spirit, call it intuition, call it grace or evolution, call it the great reality, or call it nothing.  There is something going on here with which I am partnered. That’s the good news—I’m not alone.

The bad news is: I forget this regularly.  I think I am in charge and attempt to control my reality.  When this happens, the results are generally not pretty. When I am operating on self-will, when I am forging forward with my intended plan for the moment, I suffer.  When I relax into what is, there is freedom and breath and ease. It’s profoundly simple, yet it is the imperfect practice that will carry me to my final breath.

Okay.  Yes. I believe that.  And in this past decade, I have learned and continue to practice making specific my understanding of the Divine, finding access to that Grace through that which is literally right in front of my nose.

And hence, the magic unfolds!  A good friend, Eamon, sent on this most extraordinary piece from his friend, Bear Fox, an elder in the Haudenosaunee people, an alliance among six Native American nations. While each nation has its own identity, they together form a confederation, whose name means “people who build a house.”

Please give yourself this gift; receive Bear’s blessing:

Where more fully and most obviously does Grace live, but in the beauty of our glorious earth?

In the stars, 

The birds,

The air,

The water?

Where does more magic exist,

But right there,

Before 

Our

Very

Silly 

Human

Noses?

May we see the beauty that is.

~~~

Dear Friends, let’s imagine that, in this new decade, moment by moment, we practice being available to the Grace that blesses us, always.

All blessings,
Aruni

To hear more of Bear Fox’s music, check out Spotify or iTunes.

That’s How the Light Gets In*

by

That’s How the Light Gets In*

*Anthem, by Leonard Cohen

It’s been dark.  

It’s been dark and it’s been cold.  

It’s been dark and it’s been cold and it’s been windy.

Both light and warmth seem squeezed out of the day, each day unfolding a little colder, a little less hospitable, a little shorter. 

The brilliant synchronicity of the planet is readying us for the inevitability of the return of the light, we hope and think.

When I was a little Jewish kid growing up in the dominantly gentile over-culture of Scranton, Pennsylvania in the 1950’s, I was fascinated by the Christmas lights.  My dad would drive us through the gentile areas of town most decorated; we would ogle at the decorations.  

I remember my mom in the car, silent, her lack of approval thick in the air.  Not my dad, he was a fan, out there in the world he was not invited into, wanting what wasn’t his.  

I am my father’s daughter.

The lights, as attractive and as foreign to me as the fancy big old houses they adorned, were mesmerizing.  I didn’t really like them. I just wanted them—I knew they represented some status, some something, that I could never own or achieve.

Flashing reindeer and jolly Santa clauses, elves, and bushels of toys…these were not promised to little Jewish kids back then, oh, no.

We only had the miracle of the Chanukah lights.  The oil found in the destroyed temple was just enough for one day.  Yet lasted eight days, eight whole days, we are told.

As a kid, miraculous oil was not so compelling; I wanted the promise of a jolly Santa clause coming down the chimney we didn’t have and all he might deliver.

Today, several billion decades later, thank goodness I am able to appreciate the miracle of the oil, the miracle of the Chanukah lights, the miracle of the magical number 8, the number of transcendence.

Today I choose transcendence over the promise of an elusive Santa clause.

Transcendence.

Beyond the normal.  Beyond the physical.  The ordinary.

I believe in transcendence, that, from accepting the human, the divine is accessible.

I do.

I believe in breakdown as the doorway to rebirth, I do.

I have been carried through so much loss, I have.  

I have always found my way, no matter what, I have.

Yet the darkness this year feels to me intense, thick, dense.  

I am struggling bitterly with the self-perceived darkness in my life, how “my plan” isn’t unfolding as “I hoped.”

Darkness is the key.

Darkness is the gift.

It is in the darkness that the transcendence, the change, the rebirth occurs.

Marcel Proust says:

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.

Complete destruction opens into rebirth.

The darkness will be the container, the backdrop into which the return of the light unfolds.

The breakdown will be the grounding for the transformation.

The shattered dream will be the doorway to new possibility, not of our making.

It is inevitable—December 21, the light is returning.

It is written—through the shattering of our hearts and the cracking open of our dreams, rebirth beyond our wildest dreams will occur.

Leonard Cohen, bless him, our dear Leonard, who had enough sense to die on November 7, 2016, right as Donald J. Trump was being elected—says it.  

He says it.

Here is Anthem, from his extraordinary 2008 London tour:

The crack is how the light gets in.

Darkness and light,

Both, 

All

Inevitable,

Sacred,

Portals into 

Our healing

And

Our 

Wholeness.

~~~

Dear Friends, 

May your holiday season be filled with relaxed ease.

May we soften into both the darkness as well as the light, the loss as well as the birth, the heartbreak as well as the renewal. 

May we honor our fear as well as our faith, our anxiety as well as our capacity to trust.

May we relax into whatever we are given.

To you and yours on this holiday season,
All blessings,
All love,
All goodness—
No matter what we are given.

Best,
Aruni

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