If someone is impolite toward me, I sometimes find myself wondering what I did wrong, or feeling as though I were being tested in the world. But the more I get into this mentality, the more I am feeding the thought of a separate self or an ego that is distinct from the world. In situations like this, I begin to wonder, where did the metaphor of life as "test" and "punishment" come from? I suppose the former from the educational system, the latter from parenting. And both are very powerful institutions indeed!
The best way to undo this situation is to realize the underlying belief that someone's rudeness is a form of punishment for something I did wrong in the past. If I let go of this idea and start to realize that perhaps the person's rudeness has nothing to do with me, then I no longer feel the burden of having to respond to it. The rudeness does not impose any demand on me, because I start to lose the belief that it was deliberately aimed at me, and was a response to me doing something wrong, or even somehow being wrong. And then there is simply no ground upon which anger can stand or fall.
No comments:
Post a Comment