Repentance

“The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God.” - St. Teresa of Avila

There has been a significant unravelling of something in me that has long been too tightly woven and in some spots, tangled. Many mental habits are the same, but they have little to no bite. I am less confused about the difference between you & me. When I am very still there is obviously none. The rest of the time I’m buffeted as before, but more as one whose place is to be buffeted - a bug in an updraft, a twig in a stream.

I wake up within the dream, over and over, but it doesn’t feel like a problem. I feel and don’t feel at the same time; I’m aware of reactivity in my body while also remaining unconcerned when there is no cause for concern.

I bow to accept the next moment - palms up and extended to receive - as unquestioning as a machine, as humbly as a servant, as imperfectly as a human being.

Sometimes these things are very hard to talk about. They live in peripheral vision and just outside the reach of words. I look for patterns and find whiffs of jealousy and fear, but because I can smell them they are also unable to sneak up on me.

That which must be cleaned out is called the fetters or hindrances or defilements in varying traditions. I scour them all and find bits of my reflection but no mirror images. 

One piece clicks into place: I can’t hold on to the defilements I recognize in myself because they are wholly symptoms of the fundamental misunderstanding. To the extent the separate self is seen through as an illusion, the defilements no longer make sense. 

Can my eyes envy my hands for the ability to type? Are my ears jealous of my tongue for the ability to taste and to speak, as though that threatens hearing? 

The more closely I look at any of these superficial mistakes, I fall through them like clouds and, like clouds, they are also real.

"We have to reflect upon the fact that we are inflicting pain whether we want to or not simply by insisting on a center called ‘me." - Ursula Jarand

So I keep looking: what is it? What is it? It isn’t quite jealousy or avarice or fear because when I turn toward them they come apart. A beautiful irony: I can only be aware of what the separate self is willing to see at any given time, and since it wants to improve, to be better, to have a positive self-image, it allows a steady drip of tolerable missteps and unskillful thoughts to be seen. All the while I continue to wonder how to get at the roots; they don’t seem to be findable like the branches that have become easier and easier to prune. The pruning and the pulling up at the root are not the same thing. If pruning affects the root at all, it only makes it stronger: “Look how hard I’ve worked, how far I’ve come, how far I have to go.”

The root being pulled out of the ground, on the other hand, immediately and completely ends the need for pruning.

If pruning continues to pull my attention, there is much more root remaining than I wanted to believe.

I’ve consistently worked with an eye to doing the right thing, whatever that is. It changes with conditions, constantly, but my clarity grows and makes skillful response easier over time. The hardest parts for me are those that no one sees - the poisons subtle and not so subtle in my own mind and heart. I have bristled over certain words like “jealousy” and “repentance,” and have taken on many second arrows of shame when I notice what I’d call “resentment” in myself. It seems funny now that it wasn’t obvious to me that every single word that chaffed had a personal insight to offer. I didn’t know, even though I have known well for a very long time now that resistance is a cue, and agitation is a cue, and turning away is a cue. I know too that I can somehow be aware and unaware at the same time that I am avoiding an unflattering truth.

Knowing that has not spared me from the pattern, although the knowledge is far from worthless. I have come to trust that discomfort means I will have to look in that direction and that it will yield something good, even while I remain powerless to turn toward that discomfort until it is either so great that I can’t turn away, or the barrier that prevented me from seeing more clearly is suddenly pierced.

None of this is done by me. I sit (not enough). I work. I resolve to put my actions where my intentions are on a daily basis . . . and then I follow through on that resolve at what feels like about 65% of my capacity. I know some of you who know me well will disagree with this, say I’m too hard on myself, but that’s immaterial. The point is that none of us can do this perfectly, yet we are also each of us already doing it perfectly. We get up and try again. We come together to sit and reflect and connect. We intentionally turn toward what must be faced when we can, and open our hearts to beauty when we can.

Trying to be good has been a Sisyphean task, just short of pointless, and necessary. But now, there is a barrier pierced. I can’t be good to you, or bad. I am Sisyphus, and the boulder, and the hill. They all remain, but they are all one thing.

Every single conflict or character defect or situation I’ve ever tried to address, whether with others or in my own conscience, has relied on the fundamental misunderstanding. When I cannot understand my old position of believing you could really hurt me, I am free to simply adjust or not engage or turn toward the vast emptiness to look for where it is I imagined I could be harmed. You can probably guess where that looking leads.

I have done so much harm simply by believing in a self called “me.” Of course I have remorse, but it’s not a problem. It’s humbling and illuminating. I have wanted so badly to not do harm, but I was powerless to avoid it. I was not, however, powerless over whether I practiced, whether I acknowledged my shortcomings, whether I paid attention.

With a bit less delusion than I had a few months ago, the words I’ve long avoided now call to me: “look here! Over here is one of the keys, and over there, another.” 

In case anyone else has been avoiding these particular words too, I’ll offer you a shortcut: jealousy depends on the delusion that one is threatened and must protect one’s  . . . anything - not just money or relationships. One can hoard access or information; one can be jealous of losing something in a fantasy future that has never even happened.

Resentment has a Pali word, macchariya, meaning a kind of bitterness or stinginess that is related to envy - pain at others’ success, and desire to hoard one’s own.

Repentance doesn’t mean you’re bad; it means resolve to correct a mistake that has been clearly seen. It is humility in action.

“We know repentance is real the moment our hearts open. . . The Sixth Patriarch referred to it as coming back or returning to our original nature - to what we originally are. . . anything we add, any ornament, any belief system, any concept we have, defines a “me,” a separate self. . . Repentance happens when the imagined self is burned up in the fullness of each moment.” - Ursula Jarand

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