June 8, 2023 Thursday Morning, June Retreat
Aaron Shares from the Heart on Forgiveness
Forgiveness
used skillfully
has the power of lifting resentment
from the baggage we carry,
letting go of the closed-ness of our heart.
Forgiveness is a skillful means for opening the heart
where it has closed to another and ourselves.
It has the power of re-energizing
some of the numb spots
in our mind and body.
It has the possibility
of letting us take birth at last,
fully alive,
belly soft,
heart open,
mind clear.
———-
There is a quality to forgiveness
that allows us to live our life more lightly
and more directly.
It can only be done at the right time.
It cannot be forced.
But before it can be practiced wholeheartedly,
that which blocks forgiveness
needs to be investigated—
the anger, the guilt, the fear, the distrust
that block the entrance to the heart.
———-
The stone
blocking the mouth of the cave
of Yeshua’s resurrection
was rolled way,
and he could emerge.
What is the stone blocking your heart?
These are the hindrances that block the heart,
the blockages to our freedom.
———-
Understand the true nature of anger.
moment to moment,
not mistaking it for a single state of mind, but
seeing that in truth
anger is dependent upon desire.
It’s dependent on this, on that.
To understand anger,
one needs to understand desire.
When something blocks what we desire,
anger arises.
Then we may condemn ourself
and there’s more anger.
——–
When desire is not fulfilled,
whether it’s desire for the ice cream cone,
desire to be loved,
desire for God,
frustration arises.
Being able to watch the desire,
how it blocks,
how it turns from one thing to another,
and then pause and say,
“No. I see this is all arising from conditions,
and I see the habitual patterns and the karma.”
Maybe not the distinct karma of this lifetime and that lifetime,
but you don’t need to see that;
you just know that it’s happening.
Thousands of times it has happened.
This is the end to it.
———-
I spoke of the muddy path walked endlessly.
Each time you look and say,
“but this is the path,”
and you simply move into habitual patterning,
you’re getting deeper into the mud.
Enough!
When we see the nature of anger as desire blocked,
resulting in frustration,
resulting in confusion and aggression,
we see that anger is not a single state
but the unfolding,
the interconnectedness
of one mind state after another.
———-
Only in our drowsy blindness,
only in the way we usually,
habitually relate to our mind
as mud across the senses,
as confusion,
as humanness,
do we start to see the moment to moment process
that we have sloppily, lazily labelled anger,
but which is actually a moment of holding,
manifest of fear,
becoming a moment of doubt,
a moment of inner monologue,
shadow-boxing,
fantasy.
Then we are able to stop and say,
“Ah, I have allowed this human experience,
invited it.
I hold myself in my heart,
and I forgive myself for the errors of judgment I have made,
for the enactment of emotion,
enactment of fear.
And I forgive others.”
Only then are we able truly to forgive.
Until that point
we are simply stating phrases of forgiveness
that are meaningless when empty of intention.
———-
It is the tendency of the heart to be drawn into forgiveness.
Knowing its enormous power for healing,
we must be respectful of the pains
this forgiveness is intended to release.
If you went to the gym
and were determined to lift a 200 pound weight,
but you had never lifted any weights,
you could not do it.
We start with the 5 pounds,
and the 10 pounds,
and the 20 pounds,
and we work up to the 200 pound weight.
Practice whatever capacity you might have
to touch the deepest wounds,
the deepest pains,
with mercy.
Force closes the heart.
Forcing forgiveness can just be another way
to be unforgiving to ourselves,
to feel a failure,
to back away from our healing.
Begin by forgiving yourself.
And if that’s too hard,
forgive whatever calls to you for forgiveness.
——–
June 8, 2023, June Intensive