This slogan is about the danger of clinging to resentments and planning revenge. It is about the scheming mind, the mind that never forgets a slight. Such resentments eat away at our peace of mind, sometimes for years, and even decades. This kind of unforgiving attitude can cause us to cut ourselves off from long-term friends or relatives. It can make us so rigid and inflexible that even on our deathbed we refuse to release our grudge. Right to the end of life we plot our revenge. Instead of re-establishing good relations, we wait in ambush for the person we resent to show weakness.
This pattern is very obvious in Canadian politics. When Jack Layton left office to deal with his second round of cancer and appointed a woman who had past ties with the Bloc, the other parties couldn’t wait to go on the attack. The liberals resented the NDP surge that left them with only five members of Parliament and the Conservatives feared the sudden popularity of the NDP. Neither party hesitated to insult the Opposition party. In fact, the conservatives were so hasty in their attack that they forgot to notice that their minister of transportation had been a member of the Bloc for eight years. Their lust for revenge blinded them to their own weaknesses.
Resentment and revenge have ignited neighbourhood feuds that wage on for years. One neighbour doesn’t agree with the way another handles their dog or taps into a rural water system and lets fly a volley of insults and accusations. Then the tables are turned and the other side goes on the attack. Then the scheming begins and instead of having supportive harmonious communities we have life in a war zone where neither neighbour can do anything right. Even when there is no insult, one is perceived.
In friendships and family relations, it is easy to get caught up in a cycle where we dwell on insults we have endured. We stew about them, about how unfair they are, about how we didn’t deserve them. We dwell on these insults until they fester as wounds in our minds and then we slowly build our case for ambush. We lay out plans and wait, ready to pounce on the first sign of weakness. We let our resentments take over our thoughts. By doing so, we enslave ourselves to the words and actions of others. Quality of life is diminished because resentments have taken over our minds. Working with this slogan can free us from that unhealthy and uncomfortable pattern.
Suggested practice: In the present, notice your response when somebody insults you. What is the physical sensation and what thoughts arise in your mind? Looking back, do a grudge survey. How many grudges have you been carrying with you, and for how long? How does it feel to carry a grudge, and how do you feel when the grudge softens or dissolves and you let it go?
This column is a long series of short essays exploring the meaning of the Lojong Slogans. It is inspired by the work of Judy Lief.
Kuya Minogue is the resident teacher at Creston’s ZenWords Zen Centre. For more information, she can be reached at 250-428-3390.