Correction on my initial post – detachment is not indifference or stoicism

Just another note on forgiveness

When a person says they will never forgive, perhaps because they associate forgiveness with letting someone off the hook… The danger is that subconsciously they may be saying “I refuse to let go of the pain that was done to me. As long as I hold onto the hurt… I hurt and punish the one that hurt me… and I blame myself…

Anita is right, you don’t need to consciously go through the process of forgiveness. It may not even be advisable if you are unclear as to what forgiveness means. Anita will help you learn what you need to learn from the experience and so hopefully move on… which can also be an important part of the forgiveness process.

It is my hope that when you do find your way past the experience that hate and anger your feel will have dissipated as the danger is to become bitter.

Joseph Campbell Tells the following story. It may not appear to be about forgiveness however it does I think point to why the process of forgiveness is important to becoming.

A samurai warrior had the duty to avenge the murder of his overlord. After some time, he found and cornered the man who had murdered his overlord. As he was about to deal with him with his samurai sword, when this man in the corner, in the passion of terror, spat in his face. In this moment the samurai sheathed the sword and walked away. Why did he do that?

Because he was made angry, and if he had killed that man then, it would have been a personal act, of another kind of act, that’s not what he had come to do.

The samurai’s mission was not simply to kill the murderer, but to honor his master and fulfill his duty. Killing the murderer out of anger would not have fulfilled the intrinsic call of his duty. To an observer, whether he killed the culprit motivated by honor or anger, it wouldn’t have mattered. The murderer would be dead either way.

But to the samurai, his own motivation made all the difference. He needed a crystal clear answer for why he was taking action, and a reactive response out of anger would not only be dishonorable, it would negate the reason for his quest.

You can choose your response. You can observe an unhelpful emotion take hold, but you don’t have to react. You always can choose to act in a way that honors the vision of the person you truly want to be.

Nothing is just a means to an end. Every action is an end in itself. The path is the destination, right? It’s the journey that matters.

Hi Talia

Your creating a great deal of suffering for yourself. As you have had affairs in the past that did not work out and that this man is married something else is going on which has nothing to do with what this guy does or doesn’t do. Getting to the bottom of that before involving yourself any more may be helpful.

I don’t mean to be cruel but you need to stop contacting married men. I don’t think  “just friends”works for you or that your ready for that.  You like the attention and validation you get from good looking guys however until you discover that such validation isn’t required for a strong sense of self your going to recreate the scenario repeatedly until you learn the lesson.

You might want to create some space, with no men, and really look at what you want for yourself and what you want from a relationship.

David Richo books on relationships might be helpful for you.

How to Create Emotional Freedom by Setting Healthy Boundaries

I am 35 and I want a marriage. The worst part is that I know I won’t find anyone ever as I am “too old” now.

“When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”  ― Chuck Palahniuk

“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.” ― Rick Riordan

The word marriage, what does it mean?  Why does a word hold so much power? Do we mistake the map for the territory and miss the experience?

It is to easy to create what we fear so difficult to create what we hope for… though the process is the same.

Neil wrote a great short story – October about a woman who finds the magic lamp and gets three wishes only she refuses to make any. She’s good she tells the genie. At first the genie can’t understand but as time goes by a relationship forms with the genie doing things for the woman and the woman doing things for the genie all without wishes or the like. Later the woman asks the genie what his three wishes would be. He’s good he tells her.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Peter.

There’s a Zen story about an eager young monk who checks into a monastery and is rearing to go get this thing called enlightenment. “How long will it take?” he asks the abbot.

“Ten years,” replies the abbot.

“That long! Why so long?” exclaims the horrified young monk.

“Did I say ten? I meant twenty.”

“Twenty?”

“So sorry, I think it will take you thirty years.

Asking “How long?” will get you ten. Three strikes will get you thirty. As soon as the expectation or imagery of awakening or inner peace pops up, you get thirty years.

When we measure experiences, the experience starts to disappear and become something else.

It is not calmness or inner peace we have when nothing is going on around us. It is when one’s actions and thoughts are calm, detached from outcomes and judgments (not indifference or stoicism), while engaged in the chaotic world around us that inner peace is “realized“.

It is a paradox of enlightenment (inner peace) that to become… we work to get to a place where  we  stop giving a darn about it… this, I suspect, is why the Buddha is seen so often laughing…  we work for that which no work is required.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Peter.
• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Peter.

Hi Mathew

What is ugly? Do we feel our thoughts? Become our thoughts?  How does our consciousness become fixated on a thought that  only exists because we are fixated on it. It makes no sense… yet I fully relate we feel what we feel and there is a time for everything.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you see the real you, or what you have been conditioned to believe is you? The two are so, so different. One is an infinite consciousness capable of being and creating whatever it chooses, the other is an illusion imprisoned by its own perceived and programmed limitations. – David Icke

What the mirror can’t show you is who you really are; a devoted parent, sibling, a hilarious friend, an adventurous soul.  Sometimes when we get overly caught up in appearances it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to be present in our lives.  And then we miss things, big things, little things, … everything. – Marla Chicky

When Negative Thoughts Keep You Down: How to Break the Addiction

Hi Unicornmeadows

Love and understanding….  Sometimes I wonder if love and understanding can exist together in the same moment of time. Perhaps not.

After a painful breakup the question that reverberated within my head – What’s love got to do with it?  Everything? Nothing? Both?

It seems to me that some relationships without Love often lasted longer then they should while relationships where Love was present and real ended to soon.  Love its seems did not always guarantee that a relationship would last and in some cases, Love may have required that relationship end.  Then from a different perspective, if one cared to travel that path, the realisation that All of it is Love…. So, we have thousand and thousand of books, songs, moves, poems… all trying to understand This thing called Love.

I know that none of the above is likely to help… I do not believe your ex-boyfriend is lying when he said he loves you but that life is pulling him away.  Life demands growth and it’s a bitter/sweet truth that sometimes its the end of a relationship that is the push we receive.

Time does not heal though it allows our attachment to the memory to fade so that we might move forward with what we have learned.  Bitter/Sweet.

How to Love More and Hurt Less in Relationships

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by Peter.