I remembered the other day that part of Zen practice is "taking the step back." Being very human I have negative, unskilful reactions to things that other people do and say. The unskillful way to have such a reaction is to go with it and be caught up in it like a net that drags me along to further negative consequences - anger, jealousy, irritation - you know.
The skillful way is to take a step back and see the reaction for just what it is - my emotions living their life with no regard for my wholeness. Part of the stepping back is to make no judgement of the reaction, not judging it as negative or positive; and not judging me for having it in the first place.
On Monday I was able to do this by seeing my reaction and saying to myself, "Isn't that interesting"; and then seeing what was next. A simple but powerful skill for bringing awareness. Last night I got caught in the net and totally forgot, that is, WAS NOT AWAKE, to the ability and skill for stepping back and simply seeing it as interesting. That's being human. My Zen practice is to take steps to heal the incident and begin the practice again. That's also being human.
If you can just appreciate each thing, one by one, then you will have pure gratitude - Suzuki Roshi -
Thursday, March 8, 2007
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1 comment:
Most of us think the best way to deal with negative reactions is to condemn them. It's interesting to observe, however, that condemning our negative reactions seems merely to reenforce them.
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