Skip to main content

Is it Important to Forgive?

Labels:
One day, the sage gave the disciple an empty sack and a basket of potatoes. "Think of all the people who have done or said something against you in the recent past, especially those you cannot forgive. For each of them, inscribe the name on a potato and put it in the sack."


The disciple came up quite a few names, and soon his sack was heavy with potatoes.

"Carry the sack with you wherever you go for a week," said the sage. "We'll talk after that."

At first, the disciple thought nothing of it. Carrying the sack was not particularly difficult. But after a while, it became more of a burden. It sometimes got in the way, and it seemed to require more effort to carry as time went on, even though its weight remained the same.

After a few days, the sack began to smell. The carved potatoes gave off a ripe odor. Not only were they increasingly inconvenient to carry around, they were also becoming rather unpleasant.

Finally, the week was over. The sage summoned the disciple. "Any thoughts about all this?"

"Yes, Master," the disciple replied. "When we are unable to forgive others, we carry negative feelings with us everywhere, much like these potatoes. That negativity becomes a burden to us and, after a while, it festers."

"Yes, that is exactly what happens when one holds a grudge. So, how can we lighten the load?"

"We must strive to forgive."

"Forgiving someone is the equivalent of removing the corresponding potato from the sack. How many of your transgressors are you able to forgive?"

"I've thought about it quite a bit, Master," the disciple said. "It required much effort, but I have decided to forgive all of them."

"Very well, we can remove all the potatoes. Were there any more people who transgressed against you this last week?"

The disciple thought for a while and admitted there were. Then he felt panic when he realized his empty sack was about to get filled up again.

"Master," he asked, "if we continue like this, wouldn't there always be potatoes in the sack week after week?"

"Yes, as long as people speak or act against you in some way, you will always have potatoes."

"But Master, we can never control what others do. So what good is the Tao in this case?"

"We're not in the realm of the Tao yet. Everything we have talked about so far is the conventional approach to forgiveness. It is the same thing that many philosophies and most religions preach – we must constantly strive to forgive, for it is an important virtue. This is not the Tao because there is no striving in the Tao."

"Then what is the Tao, Master?"

"You can figure it out. If the potatoes are negative feelings, then what is the sack?"

"The sack is... that which allows me to hold on to the negativity. It is something within us that makes us dwell on feeling offended.... Ah, it is my inflated sense of self-importance."

"And what will happen if you let go of it?"

"Then... there is no sack to carry the potatoes / grudge. No me, no holding of the grudge, no need to forgive."

The End ---
of Me ---
--- is The Beginning
--- of We

warmly
aditi-ratnesh

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Don't like TRUST

Dear Mummy and Papa Trust is such a big problem. I don't like it. Please do not trust me. When you say you trust me, this puts pressure on me. I don't like trust. You say you trust that I will keep my word. But many times I am not able to. Sometimes because I gave that promise because you wanted me to (and I didn't really want to) - like the promise of not eating that chocolate before dinner. Then you said that I had broken your trust. I don't like trust. You say you trust that I will not tell lies. But many times, when I'm simply scared to get a scolding, I tell lies. I was scared when I did not complete the project so I told that my teacher liked my work. Then you saw my diary and teacher's note and you said that I had broken your trust. I don't like trust. You say you trust that I will live up to your expectations. But the other day when i was teasing my friend badly, you said I had broken your trust because I did not behave properly while you expected me...
Post a Comment
Read more

[Jagriti] Who is RESPONSIBLE ??

Excerpt from a book by OSHO - Rajneesh (Autobiography of a spiritually incorrect mystic ) The wise man wants you only to have insight into things so that you have your own light. But you don't want insight, you want clear-cut instructions. You don't want to see yourself, you want to be guided. You don't want to accept your responsibility towards yourself; you want to throw the whole responsibility on the shoulders of the master, on the shoulders of the wise man. Then you feel at ease. Now he is responsible; if something goes wrong, he is responsible. And everything is going to be wrong, because unless you take your responsibility nothing is ever going to be right. Nobody can put you right except you yourself. A real religious person is born the moment you accept your responsibility for yourself, the moment you say, "Whatsoever I am is my choice—not of the past but of the present. It is my choice of this moment, and if I want to change it I am absolutely free to change ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Observing is Learning.

A man who wants to learn ZEN gets redirected to a small tea shop that an elderly lady runs. He goes and asks her, "Can you teach me Zen?" The elderly lady, in response, SLAPS him hard. Shocked, the man runs aways only to come back the next day, disguised, just to find out why she slapped him. He quietly sits in one corner of her shop, afraid that he may get slapped again. As he sits there, he observes . He observes how she makes the tea, how she serves her customers and how her whole shop is and he observes every little detail about this lady and her tea shop and thereby he learns  ZEN. When somebody tells us that he or she wants to learn about children or how to facilitate them, we recommend three things you must do and those are: Observe  Observe     Observe   Most of what we have learned about children has actually come about because we observed and are still observing and learning. Which is why when people want to learn from us, we gently, but firmly turn them to learn fr...
1 comment
Read more