Jesus Christ said
"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."
If you really look into the meaning of this statement , you can see that it is deep. It is not about tolerance. It is a new way of seeing. Don't just interpret this to situations where you are hit, which is not very common. This is only a saying. It is the reaction that is important here.
"But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."
If you really look into the meaning of this statement , you can see that it is deep. It is not about tolerance. It is a new way of seeing. Don't just interpret this to situations where you are hit, which is not very common. This is only a saying. It is the reaction that is important here.
When you are hit on your cheek, it is the first arrow. You feel pain. But there are no other sensations. But an emotion arises in you, which is either anger or sorrow or some such feeling.This is the second arrow. If that doesn't arise , then there is no problem in accepting the situation. But the pain often gets associated with you. You often feel that the other person has hit you. Now the reaction is cascading. The evil is not only on the hitting. It is also in you. The different emotions , hatred all are evil only. The awareness clearly tells you there is only a pain , nothing else because of the strike and i am distinct from the pain.
You can show the other cheek only when the pain of the first has not been identified with you. When there are no reactions, a pain is just that ; a sensation. Then you can turn again. You need not avoid a situation just because it gave you pain before. This is the real meaning of the statement. We tend to avoid situations in life if it hurts us. This is not to say that we should go on experiencing pain. But there is no need to avoid it just because once you suffered and the suffering was merely adding on to it by virtue of emotions , feelings and so on. Avoiding all unpleasant situations is because of a reaction to reaction.
When they crucified Jesus , he had a clear understanding that it was not him that they hurt. If you are as detached as that , you just would feel the body pain , nothing else is felt. There are no anger, hatred or any such feelings. That is why he could pray for them. If you look at each experience you can see how much we add in terms of new arrows to the original arrow.
You can show the other cheek only when the pain of the first has not been identified with you. When there are no reactions, a pain is just that ; a sensation. Then you can turn again. You need not avoid a situation just because it gave you pain before. This is the real meaning of the statement. We tend to avoid situations in life if it hurts us. This is not to say that we should go on experiencing pain. But there is no need to avoid it just because once you suffered and the suffering was merely adding on to it by virtue of emotions , feelings and so on. Avoiding all unpleasant situations is because of a reaction to reaction.
When they crucified Jesus , he had a clear understanding that it was not him that they hurt. If you are as detached as that , you just would feel the body pain , nothing else is felt. There are no anger, hatred or any such feelings. That is why he could pray for them. If you look at each experience you can see how much we add in terms of new arrows to the original arrow.
The nature of awareness is to be free from whatever we are aware of. By knowing distinctly what is our true nature and what is a perception in it , we can free from the thing that is an arising in it. Secondly we can be free from reactions to it.Normally we are entangled with whatever mind objects are in front of us. If there is a thought , we feel we are the one affected , if there is an emotion we feel we are the one feeling it and so on. There is no separation between what is perceived and the subject which is perceiving it. If there is no distinction then we get caught up with lot of transient things which makes life horribly complicated This is one of the reasons why we cannot stay in the moment.
If we look at frustrations in life, you can see it often arises out of reactions. We always have certain expectations about situations. We have certain expectations of how people should behave . If that is not satisfied, then there is a reactionary feeling. A frustration arises in us. If we are aware we can see this arising in us. Now don't just reject it. Understand that it is arising in you, then it would go away. Don't get involved with it. Remember that just as you have expectations about others , others might have expectations about you. We never come to know what that is. See frustration as a phenomenon not as something that need to be acted on.
We need to turn toward what we are adding to the experience. The experience that someone hit you in finished in a second. But the amount of hurt that we add to our mind will continue for days or even years . Who knows this might even result in revenge ,and so on. What is the experience and what have we added to it. Whatever we have added is our reactionary response. This adding of experience now also brings in us a desire for a future moment where we are free from this torture.
All this might seem like we become totally unresponsive to any situation in life. No. A response is much more lively than a reaction. A reaction is not a intellectual thing. A response often comes from a more loving and understanding being. An enlightened person will respond in this way. A more engaging and lively response. We might carefully inquire why the person hit you and if it happened because of our error , we would correct that and so on. A wise responsiveness replaces instinctive re-activity.
When you really reach towards your center, lesser of you remains. Only pure knowing remains. This is the actual meaning of samadhi. A state where we experience without any reactions . There is only experience. An experience has no target experiencer. It just is a phenomenon. In meditation we see it all the time. There is nothing apart from awareness that is permanent. Don't we see so many thoughts , emotions and so on,all coming and going.However since you are sitting still they cant make you act. The strongest emotion comes and goes. Pure awareness smiles at all of them. After some time, only awareness remains as pure bliss. This is what "letting go" means.
This is not easily achieved. It has taken years of conditioning to reach this state of re-activity. So it erodes also slowly. Patience is a great virtue. Only after a long time of watching our re-activity would we see small differences. But each witnessing of our re-activity through awareness is dissolving it .
If we look at frustrations in life, you can see it often arises out of reactions. We always have certain expectations about situations. We have certain expectations of how people should behave . If that is not satisfied, then there is a reactionary feeling. A frustration arises in us. If we are aware we can see this arising in us. Now don't just reject it. Understand that it is arising in you, then it would go away. Don't get involved with it. Remember that just as you have expectations about others , others might have expectations about you. We never come to know what that is. See frustration as a phenomenon not as something that need to be acted on.
We need to turn toward what we are adding to the experience. The experience that someone hit you in finished in a second. But the amount of hurt that we add to our mind will continue for days or even years . Who knows this might even result in revenge ,and so on. What is the experience and what have we added to it. Whatever we have added is our reactionary response. This adding of experience now also brings in us a desire for a future moment where we are free from this torture.
All this might seem like we become totally unresponsive to any situation in life. No. A response is much more lively than a reaction. A reaction is not a intellectual thing. A response often comes from a more loving and understanding being. An enlightened person will respond in this way. A more engaging and lively response. We might carefully inquire why the person hit you and if it happened because of our error , we would correct that and so on. A wise responsiveness replaces instinctive re-activity.
When you really reach towards your center, lesser of you remains. Only pure knowing remains. This is the actual meaning of samadhi. A state where we experience without any reactions . There is only experience. An experience has no target experiencer. It just is a phenomenon. In meditation we see it all the time. There is nothing apart from awareness that is permanent. Don't we see so many thoughts , emotions and so on,all coming and going.However since you are sitting still they cant make you act. The strongest emotion comes and goes. Pure awareness smiles at all of them. After some time, only awareness remains as pure bliss. This is what "letting go" means.
This is not easily achieved. It has taken years of conditioning to reach this state of re-activity. So it erodes also slowly. Patience is a great virtue. Only after a long time of watching our re-activity would we see small differences. But each witnessing of our re-activity through awareness is dissolving it .
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