His Holiness, the Dalai Lama
It is perhaps true that the most intense spiritual challenge any person will likely face, is that of gifting another with forgiveness... I am not writing or thinking about "forgiving" the little annoying hurts that are in the "everyday" category... Rather, I am laser-focused on the hurts of a brutal nature and intent: those times in which one's very being has been transformed by an all-consuming grief and anger: such as, when someone pledged and lied about an "eternal love": only to indulge in a steady psychological and spiritual annihilation of the now abandoned heart...
There are many kinds of pain. We all trip and fall in a playground as toddlers. We fall ill. We have teeth pulled. We fear failure in school. We never get picked for a ball team. Parents die. Children die. We lose a job. And on and on, round and round, there is a steady shattering of hopes and dreams: our spiritual urge fades in the face of an uncaring, seemingly disinterested, Universe: we live (if it can be called such), as it were, waiting for the next shoe to drop... And, of course, not one shoe, but many drop! Disrespect and outright lies that deceive, disrupt, and destroy are a dime a dozen...
Exhausted by deception and violence, Lao Tzu fled his home for the unknown lands of the far west of China... Similarly exhausted by deception and violence, the man who came to be known as the Christ, fell under the weight of a cosmic cross... While evident exhaustion, deception, and violence link these two sagely masters, even more so does their mystic viewpoint and teachings... Both point to the necessity of transformation: of consciousness, lifestyle, and relationships... always, from the personal to the social...
We only begin our transformation, when we can acknowledge our condition: where does our pain originate: where do we hold our pain: how do we cope with our pain: how do we try to bury our pain: why do we unleash our pain-burden in the ways that we do? These are a few of the questions that dog everyone -- anywhere on the path... We are never finished with this work... even a spiritual master, such as the Dalai Lama, has to return to his work everyday... and don't kid yourself into thinking "enlightenment" makes any aspect of this work "easy"! The deepest dive that any of us can attempt -- and perhaps complete -- is that of forgiveness...
Forgiveness is not some sort of "sanction" or "authorization" for the harm that one being caused another: rather, it is a nonviolent confrontation with the harm received: and a nonviolent confrontation with those who caused said harm... Reconciliation is a laudable goal, but more importantly, self-compassion and self-liberation are the immediate need: only when self-compassion and self-liberation are effected can there be the possibility of personal transformation: and not into forgetfulness, but rather into an identification with the Christ, with the very deep and clear waters of the Tao...
Deeper yet, is following forgiveness with compassion...
Celtic spirituality mirrors that of the Tao: the Celtic heart may access thin places in which the Tao (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) is experienced pansacramentally... In other words, the theological theory of the Oneness of the Transcendent and the Immanent is experienced in a sacramental communion... Forgiveness is the process of un-packing the pain, and practicing non-attachment in the real Reality of a cosmic inter-being... Admittedly, this is heavy stuff... and if there is one word that encapsulates this idea, it is compassion...
Another deep Celtic insight mirrors that of Lao Tzu and the Taoist: return to the Mother... the Mother Principle roots all mystic insight into the opening of the heart... open heart, open hands... there is only One practice and that One practice is Compassion... Lao Tzu outlined the characteristics of both the Way-Path and the Sagely-Practitioner... Later, Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth, incarnated the Being-Consciousness-Bliss of the Truth beyond Idea, and the Love before Need... Lao Tzu wrote, know the male, keep to the female... and Yeshua said, love one another as I have loved you... both, indicate the royal path of becoming as the Mother... (St. Francis said that we are supposed to become the Mother of God! How do you like that?!)
Who is the Mother? Or perhaps, one could even ask what is the Mother? Lao Tzu writes of the mother of all beneath heaven, nurturing mother, valley spirit, and dark female-enigma... Our Lady of Guadalupe, unknown to both Lao Tzu and the Celts, emphatically insisted, I am your Mother to a humble Indian and by spiritual implication, to all of humanity... In Buddhism, there is an absolutely and weirdly wonderful idea of the Bodhisattva: one who renounces the bliss of heaven to re-incarnate, life-after-life, in order to serve the ultimate liberation of every sentient being: and only then, will she entertain her own entrance into heaven... She is Mary... or Tara... or Kuan Yin... and ultimately, She is all and none: She is Form and Void both: this one or that one is the Same: the embodiment of Divine Love...
Beyond the world of ideas and thought, there is the Nameless, the Oneness, the Mother... Do you see? Forgiveness empties the Cup of Self-Isolation... just as Compassion re-imagines Cup as Cosmos and Self as Holy Water for all who become aware of their thirst... Now, we're into the Actual Territory of the deepest dive...
It is perhaps true that the most intense spiritual challenge any person will likely face, is that of gifting another with forgiveness... I am not writing or thinking about "forgiving" the little annoying hurts that are in the "everyday" category... Rather, I am laser-focused on the hurts of a brutal nature and intent: those times in which one's very being has been transformed by an all-consuming grief and anger: such as, when someone pledged and lied about an "eternal love": only to indulge in a steady psychological and spiritual annihilation of the now abandoned heart...
There are many kinds of pain. We all trip and fall in a playground as toddlers. We fall ill. We have teeth pulled. We fear failure in school. We never get picked for a ball team. Parents die. Children die. We lose a job. And on and on, round and round, there is a steady shattering of hopes and dreams: our spiritual urge fades in the face of an uncaring, seemingly disinterested, Universe: we live (if it can be called such), as it were, waiting for the next shoe to drop... And, of course, not one shoe, but many drop! Disrespect and outright lies that deceive, disrupt, and destroy are a dime a dozen...
Exhausted by deception and violence, Lao Tzu fled his home for the unknown lands of the far west of China... Similarly exhausted by deception and violence, the man who came to be known as the Christ, fell under the weight of a cosmic cross... While evident exhaustion, deception, and violence link these two sagely masters, even more so does their mystic viewpoint and teachings... Both point to the necessity of transformation: of consciousness, lifestyle, and relationships... always, from the personal to the social...
We only begin our transformation, when we can acknowledge our condition: where does our pain originate: where do we hold our pain: how do we cope with our pain: how do we try to bury our pain: why do we unleash our pain-burden in the ways that we do? These are a few of the questions that dog everyone -- anywhere on the path... We are never finished with this work... even a spiritual master, such as the Dalai Lama, has to return to his work everyday... and don't kid yourself into thinking "enlightenment" makes any aspect of this work "easy"! The deepest dive that any of us can attempt -- and perhaps complete -- is that of forgiveness...
Forgiveness is not some sort of "sanction" or "authorization" for the harm that one being caused another: rather, it is a nonviolent confrontation with the harm received: and a nonviolent confrontation with those who caused said harm... Reconciliation is a laudable goal, but more importantly, self-compassion and self-liberation are the immediate need: only when self-compassion and self-liberation are effected can there be the possibility of personal transformation: and not into forgetfulness, but rather into an identification with the Christ, with the very deep and clear waters of the Tao...
Deeper yet, is following forgiveness with compassion...
Celtic spirituality mirrors that of the Tao: the Celtic heart may access thin places in which the Tao (Being-Consciousness-Bliss) is experienced pansacramentally... In other words, the theological theory of the Oneness of the Transcendent and the Immanent is experienced in a sacramental communion... Forgiveness is the process of un-packing the pain, and practicing non-attachment in the real Reality of a cosmic inter-being... Admittedly, this is heavy stuff... and if there is one word that encapsulates this idea, it is compassion...
Another deep Celtic insight mirrors that of Lao Tzu and the Taoist: return to the Mother... the Mother Principle roots all mystic insight into the opening of the heart... open heart, open hands... there is only One practice and that One practice is Compassion... Lao Tzu outlined the characteristics of both the Way-Path and the Sagely-Practitioner... Later, Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth, incarnated the Being-Consciousness-Bliss of the Truth beyond Idea, and the Love before Need... Lao Tzu wrote, know the male, keep to the female... and Yeshua said, love one another as I have loved you... both, indicate the royal path of becoming as the Mother... (St. Francis said that we are supposed to become the Mother of God! How do you like that?!)
Who is the Mother? Or perhaps, one could even ask what is the Mother? Lao Tzu writes of the mother of all beneath heaven, nurturing mother, valley spirit, and dark female-enigma... Our Lady of Guadalupe, unknown to both Lao Tzu and the Celts, emphatically insisted, I am your Mother to a humble Indian and by spiritual implication, to all of humanity... In Buddhism, there is an absolutely and weirdly wonderful idea of the Bodhisattva: one who renounces the bliss of heaven to re-incarnate, life-after-life, in order to serve the ultimate liberation of every sentient being: and only then, will she entertain her own entrance into heaven... She is Mary... or Tara... or Kuan Yin... and ultimately, She is all and none: She is Form and Void both: this one or that one is the Same: the embodiment of Divine Love...
Beyond the world of ideas and thought, there is the Nameless, the Oneness, the Mother... Do you see? Forgiveness empties the Cup of Self-Isolation... just as Compassion re-imagines Cup as Cosmos and Self as Holy Water for all who become aware of their thirst... Now, we're into the Actual Territory of the deepest dive...
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