Visualization

In one Buddhist compassion meditation, we are supposed to view all souls–even those who do us harm–as having once been our mother.   This may work for some, but for me, my thought is: “what the fuck happened?”  How did you slide so far down that you are now oppressing me, hurting me?  Why should I forgive now the crimes you commit simply because at some point in the infinitely distant past you were loving?  Why should I not have the right, now, to defend myself emotionally from your assaults?

Here is my version: imagine that you yourself have in the past committed every sin imaginable, across thousands of lifetimes.  You have killed and raped, tortured, maimed, stolen, lied.  You were a pedophile, committed bestiality, performed human sacrifices.

But you suffered, learned and grew.  You passed beyond that ignorance to your present condition of mostly not sucking as a human being, and trying to do better. In this life, versus the past, you have committed few acts of cruelty, have been mostly honest,and done your best as a parent.

Look at all the evil in the world, the viciousness, the stupidity, the unnecessary suffering, and realize you, too, have been the perpetrator.  You, too, were there, and you grew beyond it.  So, too, can those who are evil today.

This helps me, at any rate.  As I said in the previous post, I am in an odd mood, for specific reasons, but dealing with old emotions in, I hope, new ways.

I will add that it is odd that most of us want to have been kings in the past.  We want, at a minimum, to have been average.  But if in some primordial way we all rise from the spiritual muck, why not assume the worst of ourselves?  We are not like that any longer.  We have done our time, paid for our sins.  And so, too, will those around us.