E ele disse: “Acho que a coisa mais importante que os praticantes ocidentais tem que compreender é a não-culpa.”
Eu disse: “Não-culpa?”
Ele disse: “Sim. Vocês têm que entender que mesmo que cometam um monte de erros e confusões de todo tipo e de todo jeito, tudo é impermanente, temporário. Mas, no fundo, suas mentes e corações não são culpados. Eles são inocentes.”
Então, a não-culpa é muito importante no caso de se dissolver ou queimar as sementes da agressão dentro de nossos próprios corações e mentes.
A maioria dos ataques a outras pessoas nesta cultura, vem do fato de nos sentirmos mal conosco mesmos. Isto nos deixa tão infelizes e desconfortáveis que detona uma reação em cadeia na tentativa de fugir deste sentimento. As coisas que acontecem são muito habituais, comuns.
Se vocês forem pegos nestas situações e então alguém lhes der quatro segundos ou um minuto e depois der um tapinha no seu ombro e perguntar como aquilo faz vocês se sentirem, vocês se sentirão como “eu sou mal” e a agressão se volta contra vocês.
Talvez se vocês esperaram quatro minutos, deram um tapinha no ombro e se perguntarem como se sentem – eles estão muito errados, fizeram isso comigo e é culpa deles que eu estou nesta situação.
Mas, se neste momento vocês pararem, começarem a respirar, deixarem a coisa toda relaxar e desemaranhar, e se deixarem ficar na impermanência como espaço inefável – se vocês fizerem isso, vão entender que toda essa coisa de culpar os outros, quando vocês se aprofundarem, verão que a semente disso era realmente algum tipo de agressão e desconforto profundos dentro de vocês mesmos.
E se vocês se aprofundarem ainda mais, provavelmente encontrarão tristeza.
Eu cito este poema de Rick Fields onde ele diz:
Atrás da brutalidade há medo
E se você tocar a brutalidade do medo
Você encontrará tristeza (ela meio que fica mais e mais suave)
E se você tocar a tristeza
Você encontrará o vasto céu azul.
É isto que eu os aconselho a fazer na próxima vez em que se sentirem pegos, se vocês pararem e respirarem junto com o sentimento, não ajam, não reprimam, mas pensem nesta citação e pensem nos que vão criar uma nova cultura necessária serão os que não tem medo de se sentirem inseguros.
Seja lá que vocês pensarem neste momento, talvez seja o que se sente ao se queimar as sementes que causaram toda a dor da terra – é assim que nos sentimos.
Sempre sinto que de alguma forma temos que reformular esse sentimento ruim - para que vocês o vejam como uma porta para a libertação, como uma abertura para o vasto céu azul.
Um ensinamento de Pema Chödrön extraído de uma palestra entitulada "Praticando a Paz em Tempos de Guerra" publicada por Shambhala Publications.
I was doing an interview with Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche recently, and I asked him the question: "Rinpoche, you have been living in the west for some time now, and you know western people well. What do you think is the most important advise you could give to a western dharma practitioner?"
And he said "I think the most important thing that western dharma practitioners need to understand is guiltlessness."
I said "guiltlessness?"
He said "Yes. You have to understand that even though you make a lot of mistakes and you mess up in all kinds of ways, all of that is impermanent and shifting and changing and temporary. But fundamentally, your mind and heart are not guilty. They are innocent."
So guiltlessness is very important in the subject of dissolving or burning up the seeds of aggression in our own hearts and our own minds.
Most of the striking out at other people, for us in this culture, comes from feeling bad about ourselves. It makes us so wretched and so uncomfortable that it sets off the chain reaction of trying to get away from that feeling. It's some very very habitual thing that happens.
If you got hooked, and then someone was to give you four seconds, or a minute, and then tap you on the shoulder and ask you what that feels like, it feels really bad, it feels like "bad me" and the aggression is turned against yourself.
Maybe if you waited four minutes and tapped them on the shoulder, what it feels like is - they are really wrong, and they did this to me, and its their fault that I'm in this situation.
But somehow, if at that moment, you were to pause, and start breathing and let the whole thing unwind and unravel, and hang out in the impermanent yet ineffable space - if you were to do that you might realize that all of this blaming of other people, when you went into it deeper, you would see that the seed of it was really some deep discomfort and aggression about yourself.
And if you went more deeply into that, you would probably find sadness.
And I quote this so much, this Poem of Rick Fields, where he said:
And he said "I think the most important thing that western dharma practitioners need to understand is guiltlessness."
I said "guiltlessness?"
He said "Yes. You have to understand that even though you make a lot of mistakes and you mess up in all kinds of ways, all of that is impermanent and shifting and changing and temporary. But fundamentally, your mind and heart are not guilty. They are innocent."
So guiltlessness is very important in the subject of dissolving or burning up the seeds of aggression in our own hearts and our own minds.
Most of the striking out at other people, for us in this culture, comes from feeling bad about ourselves. It makes us so wretched and so uncomfortable that it sets off the chain reaction of trying to get away from that feeling. It's some very very habitual thing that happens.
If you got hooked, and then someone was to give you four seconds, or a minute, and then tap you on the shoulder and ask you what that feels like, it feels really bad, it feels like "bad me" and the aggression is turned against yourself.
Maybe if you waited four minutes and tapped them on the shoulder, what it feels like is - they are really wrong, and they did this to me, and its their fault that I'm in this situation.
But somehow, if at that moment, you were to pause, and start breathing and let the whole thing unwind and unravel, and hang out in the impermanent yet ineffable space - if you were to do that you might realize that all of this blaming of other people, when you went into it deeper, you would see that the seed of it was really some deep discomfort and aggression about yourself.
And if you went more deeply into that, you would probably find sadness.
And I quote this so much, this Poem of Rick Fields, where he said:
Behind the hardness there is fear
And if you touch the heart of the fear
You find sadness (it sort of gets more and more tender)
And if you touch the sadness
You find the vast blue sky
And if you touch the heart of the fear
You find sadness (it sort of gets more and more tender)
And if you touch the sadness
You find the vast blue sky
This is really what I am encouraging is the next time you feel yourself hooked, if you pause and you breath with it, and you don't act out and you don't repress, but you think of this quote, and you think the ones that will create the new culture that is needed are those that are not afraid to be insecure.
Whatever it is that you think at that moment, maybe this is what it feels like to be burning up the seeds that have caused all the pain on this earth - this is what that feels like.
I always feel that somehow you have to reframe that bad feeling - so that you see it as a doorway to liberation, as an opening to the vast blue sky.
A teaching by Pema Chödrön excerpted from a talk entitled "Practicing Peace in Times of War"
published by Shambhala Publications
