Field
of Soul
“Out
beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there
is a field. I'll meet your there.
When
the soul lies down in that grass,
the
world is too full to talk about.
Ideas,
language, even the phrase each other
doesn't
make any sense.”
Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)
When
the Dalai Lama was here in Birmingham, he talked about “oneness.”
He spoke of all the means we employ to see ourselves as separate, and
to compare ourselves to others. He said quite emphatically, “We are
all the same!” We are not different on any level that truly
matters. His words got me wondering whether that's what we are here
to learn—that this simple truth, “we are all the same,” is
the meaning of life. Not just to think it, or to speak it, but to
realize it soul-deep, and live from that place. The things that
separate us—race, religion, wealth, gender, tribe, ideology—are
superficial. Underneath all that, we are exactly the same.
If
we are to embrace our oneness, we must begin with self-acceptance. Some
of us have an inner saboteur, who points out all our shortcomings, berates us when we make a mistake, and expounds on how much we
lack. And, that bad-boy is just as hard on everyone else. It is the
critical voice inside your head, and he is an equal-opportunity kind
of guy. He needs to be silenced. We humans make mistakes, we have
shortcomings, we sometimes screw up—it goes with the territory.
It's enough to say, “Uh-oh, I made a mistake!” and get on with
correcting it.
Self-acceptance
is hard for some of us because we know we've hurt a lot of people,
and not lived up to our own expectations. But, if we let that regret
color our every move, we will never overcome. If you live long
enough, you will hurt others, and you will be hurt by others. It is
one of the things that makes us alike. Forgiveness is the solution
all around—forgive yourself, and forgive them and move on. The
grass is green in that field beyond wrondoing and rightdoing, and our
souls long to lie down.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment