Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Trying hard to care enough


Kamala (or Jaime) at the blog Meditate and Destroy shared a powerful experience from her past. It surprised me what it brought out of me, a memory still so vivid, but one I just want to forget.

Initially, I wrote about this experience and posted it. After sleeping on the matter, I have decided to remove the narrative. The question kept arising, why do I want to post this? And after examining this question, I concluded that the answer was not appropriate.

We have all had experiences in our lives that we want to forget; the reason why is unimportant. In our own little universe of our mind, our experiences are the most important things, events, in the world; but when viewed outside of this narrow realm of perception, they can become insignificant.

By saying this, I am not suggesting that Kamala’s life experiences are insignificant. What she writes about in her blog is profound. And while it evoked a memory out of me, while it sparked a recollection from my past, the fact that I have somewhat clumsily labeled them as “similar” is a fabrication of my own, a categorization created by mind.

So when I titled this post “Trying hard to care enough,” it was intended to reflect on my own struggle to care enough about myself, and by enough, I mean in the right way. As the concept of metta reveals, before we can truly be kind and friendly and helpful to others, we must genuinely be that way with ourselves first. If I cannot correctly understand my own suffering and delusions, how can I help others with theirs?

Another photo of Benny's, also from Peru. You can see more of his photos here.

4 comments:

  1. I was able to read what you wrote before you decided to delete it and I have to disagree, I don't think it was insignificant at all. One thing that I've come to realise over the years is that "It's all relative.". Let's say that my friend failed a test and had never ever failed a test in their whole entire school career, to them that would be the worst day of their lives. Another friend may have found out their pet passed away and to them, that would be the worst day of their lives. Both have experienced pain, suffering and grief. Neither is better or more worthy of sympathy than the other because to them they both experienced great loss.

    ...I really hope that made some kind of sense.

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  2. Thank you Kamala, you made perfect sense. I appreciate your kindness...:)

    metta

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  3. Awesome.

    No worries. Once I learned/realised that it's all relative, it made life a bit easier.

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  4. Richard,
    I have been thinking of the need for a good 1 to 2 month silent retreat, just to work further on my mind to enable me to understand myself better, looking deeply at my flaws and motivations ...just to be really able to help others.

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