Forgiveness
It’s a Saturday morning and I am grumpy. I am impatient with my partner. I am angry at an offer of help. I cling to unhappiness.
I am better able to notice when I am out of balance than I used to be, thanks to wise teachers and healing practices.
And I still fall. Hard.
These ordinary moments are really uncomfortable. I don’t like myself like this.
“The ground of practice is you or me or whoever we are right now, just as we are,” Pema Chödrön reminds us. The ground of practice is “befriending who we already are.”
Not judging. Not shaming. Compassionately noticing.
Then I can start anew with kindness to myself, and to others, from whoever I am right now.
Once a young woman said to me,
“Hafiz, what is the sign
of someone who knows God?”*
I became very quiet,
and looked deep into her eyes,
then replied,
“My dear, they have dropped the knife.
Someone who knows God has dropped
the cruel knife
that most so often use upon their tender self
and others.”
―Hāfez
*Or consciousness, dharma, love…