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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

Your enemies and those obstructors who harm you are there because of your own karma. Anytime someone harms you, you should thank them for allowing you to pay back your karmic debt.
Love thy enemy.

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Originally posted by divinefurball

Hi Carson, you said "I find myself wishing I could see karma retributed" - I think having thoughts like these come up in meditation is a good sign that meditation is helping you work your way through them, and that you are on the path to freeing your heart by asking these questions. That has been my experience at some points. Thinking about these kinds of things led me to form a phrase that I too often have to re-consider, but find a great help: "lose your anger, free your heart".

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Originally posted by Parallax

Good insights above. Awareness of the need to forgive is clearly an important first step.

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Originally posted by Parallax

I try to remember (with varying levels of success ) that the ones doing the "wrong-ing" are typically doing what they are doing in order to somehow overcome their own suffering, their own insecurities, their own feeling of lack, their own sense of separation from Self.

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Originally posted by Parallax

Try to shift from wanting retribution to wanting them to be freed from their suffering and ignorance as Osel beautifully articulates in his post. I know you already know all of this intellectually, it the practical application that's the hard part...

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Originally posted by Parallax

Soooo, my advice is to keep doing what you are doing, ie burning your samskaras in the fires of your meditation. As your obstructions dissolve in your practices, so will the ego. And as the ego fades, no "I" remains to feel wronged. I'm not sure if your are practicing Samyama, but perhaps adding a "Forgiveness" sutra would help you to overcome this block.

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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

On Samyam: Also try "Origin of my enemy."

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Originally posted by CarsonZi

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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

On Samyam: Also try "Origin of my enemy."

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Is that a book? Who is the author?

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Originally posted by cosmic_troll

Have you tried doing The Work on your desire for justice? It seems like a good candidate.

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Originally posted by CarsonZi

Hi Osel...

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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

Your enemies and those obstructors who harm you are there because of your own karma. Anytime someone harms you, you should thank them for allowing you to pay back your karmic debt.
Love thy enemy.

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Thanks for your input my friend.....I am fairly well versed in Metta and what you sing before sitting reminds me of that. But my issue is not necessarily with "enemies" or even people that have directly harmed me. A lot of the desire for justice is felt because I feel that humanity has been wronged, the environment/Mother Earth has been wronged, etc etc. I want justice to be served to corrupt politicians and bankers, to corporate executives that value profits over human life, etc etc. I don't feel a need justice for myself and the people who have wronged me directly, or at least not as much or as often as I do for humanity, society and the environment as much. It isn't situations like me getting beat up at recess time in grade school and me wishing I could go back and hurt the bully back that keep popping up in meditation. It is situations like the so-called "stimulus package" or situations like what we (as colonists)have done to the Native Americans in North America, it is strong feelings about there being a need for justice in situations like these that seem to pop up continually in my mind during meditation. It is easy for me to let go of things that happen to me directly. I have a ton of great tools for these situations. It's the situations that don't involve me directly, but are still grave injustices that seem to stick around and cause me tension. Hope this clarifies a little.

Love,
Carson

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Originally posted by CarsonZi

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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

On Samyam: Also try "Origin of my enemy."

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Is that a book? Who is the author?

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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

I really don't see any difference. Injustice is by people. These people are your obstructors. Without them, you would not feel a need to see justice served. This fixation is what obstructs you.

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Originally posted by CarsonZi


For example:
Issue: I feel that there has been a grave injustice done to the Native American Indians.
#1.Can you know this to be true? Yes.
#2.Can you positively know that this is true? Yes
#3.How does it make me feel to think this thought? Terrible. Like something should be done.
#4.Can I see a reason to drop this thought? Yes. It causes me pain and there is nothing I can do to serve justice in this matter.

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Originally posted by CarsonZi

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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

I really don't see any difference. Injustice is by people. These people are your obstructors. Without them, you would not feel a need to see justice served. This fixation is what obstructs you.

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The difference is that I don't usually feel that it is me in particular that is wronged. It is injustice itself that bothers me regardless of the entity involved.

Love,
Carson

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Originally posted by cosmic_troll

I see. Could these thoughts possibly be a call to action? For example, what would happen if you were to find a way to help the Native Americans or honor their culture? Would these thoughts then go away?

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Originally posted by Shanti

Can you turn it around?
I feel there is a grave injustice done to "Me" by "me"? I need to forgive myself?

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Originally posted by Shanti

Do you realize, injustice happens and you suffer and continue suffering?

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Originally posted by Shanti

Are you solving anything by harboring the negative feelings?

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Originally posted by Shanti

Much better to let go and heal, and then work toward the problem without any feelings, negative or positive. When you are neutral, when you are centered, you see situations as they are, in many cases you may not have to do anything because you will see the whole injustice story was created and enlarged and enlarged some more by the mind.. in some cases you may have to take action, but it will come from your silence.. your thinking mind wont be doing, things will be happening.

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Originally posted by Shanti

Maybe Anthony de Mello words will explain better what I am trying to say:
http://www.soulwise.net/99adm03.htm
The scriptures are always hinting of that, but you'll never understand a word of what the scriptures are saying until you wake up. Sleeping people read the scriptures and crucify the Messiah on the basis of them. You've got to wake up to make sense out of the scriptures. When you do wake up, they make sense. So does reality. But you'll never be able to put it into words. You'd rather do something? But even there we've got to make sure that you're not swinging into action simply to get rid of your negative feelings. Many people swing into action only to make things worse.

They're not coming from love, they're coming from negative feelings. They're coming from guilt, anger, hate; from a sense of injustice or whatever. You've got to make sure of your "being" before you swing into action. You have to make sure of who you are before you act. Unfortunately, when sleeping people swing into action, they simply substitute one cruelty for another, one injustice for another. And so it goes. Meister Eckhart says, "It is not by your actions that you will be saved" (or awakened; call it by any word you want), "but by your being. It is not by what you do, but by what you are that you will be judged". What good is it to you to feed the hungry, give the thirsty to drink, or visit prisoners in jail?

Remember that sentence from Paul: "If I give my body to be burned and all my goods to feed the poor and have not love . . ". It's not your actions, it's your being that counts. Then you might swing into action. You might or might not. You can't decide that until you're awake. Unfortunately, all the emphasis is concentrated on changing the world and very little emphasis is given to waking up. When you wake up, you will know what to do or what not to do. Some mystics are very strange, you know. Like Jesus, who said something like "I wasn't sent to those people; I limit myself to what I am supposed to do right now. Later, maybe". Some mystics go silent. Mysteriously, some of them sing songs. Some of them are into service. We're never sure. They're a law unto themselves; they know exactly what is to be done. "Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord", as I said to you earlier.

Remember that sentence from scripture about everything turning into good for those who love God? When you finally awake, you don't try to make good things happen; they just happen. You understand suddenly that everything that happens to you is good. Think of some people you're living with whom you want to change. You find them moody, inconsiderate, unreliable, treacherous, or whatever. But when you are different, they'll be different. That's an infallible and miraculous cure. The day you are different, they will become different. And you will see them differently, too.

Someone who seemed terrifying will now seem frightened. Someone who seemed rude will seem frightened. All of a sudden, no one has the power to hurt you anymore. No one has the power to put pressure on you. It's something like this: You leave a book on the table and I pick it up and say, "You're pressing this book on me. I have to pick it up or not pick it up". People are so busy accusing everyone else, blaming everyone else, blaming life, blaming society, blaming their neighbor. You'll never change that way; you'll continue in your nightmare, you'll never wake up.

Put this program into action, a thousand times: (a) identify the negative feelings in you; (b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality; (c) do not see them as an essential part of "I"; these things come and go; (d) understand that when you change, everything changes.

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Originally posted by Shanti

I tried doing samyama on "forgiveness"... All I am going to say is, there is nothing to forgive. The word forgive is a very egoic word, it means "you" have decided either you are at fault (you are below someone) or someone else is at fault(you are above someone) and needs pardoning or needs to pardon.

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Originally posted by Shanti

Just continue with your practice..

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Originally posted by Shanti

if you are feeling these feeling strongly now.. stuff is stirring up within.. maybe close to an opening/understanding of "injustice" from within?

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Originally posted by jillatay

I heard of a guru once who was asked this question over and over by a follower. After exhausting all advice he said "then become Kali" Do Something.

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Originally posted by Konchok Ösel Dorje

That's what I mean. The injustice bothers you. Some actors caused injustice and you are affected. This fixation is what obstructs you. Forgive them and wish them happiness and be separate from suffering. Their suffering is the cause of the injustice in the first place.

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Originally posted by Etherfish

Sometimes it helps to get to know the person who has caused the injustice.

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Originally posted by Etherfish

Study them to find out why they act that way.

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Originally posted by Etherfish

What makes injustice hard to take is when it makes no sense.

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How do I let go of these situations, and the need for justice to be enacted in someway I can know about, to the point that they will no longer come up in meditation?

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The difference is that I don't usually feel that it is me in particular that is wronged. It is injustice itself that bothers me regardless of the entity involved.

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"Every so often I run into a situation where I feel completely wronged, with no possibility for resolution". No possibility for resolution meaning that I can no longer communicate with this person. They are either dead, in another country, I have lost track of them, I never knew them in the first place, or they are in prison.

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"It is not by what you do, but by what you are that you will be judged"

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This makes me feel a little better because I know my heart. My heart and my "being" as AdM says above, are of pure intention. I may slip and make mistakes...scratch that, I DO slip and make mistakes but my heart is in the right place. This I know.

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How do I learn to let go of my need for justice for others I have harmed in the past?

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Originally posted by CarsonZi


Yes, there has been injustice done to me by me. And I do need to forgive myself I suppose. I think I may be too hard on myself sometimes though. I find it hard to forgive myself most of the time. Some of the stuff I have done in my past is so dispicable that I have a hard time feeling like I deserve forgiveness. Actually I went through the majority of my life consciously choosing to be unhappy. Literally consciously. I would not allow myself to feel happiness in any sense because I felt that it made me complacent. Anger has been the key motivator for most of my life. And because of this anger I have done many things that I for the most part don't feel like I deserve to be forgiven for. But I am not sure how this "turnaround" applies in this sense. Would this turnaround be suggesting that I have wronged myself by not forgiving myself?

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Originally posted by CarsonZi


Yes, much like the story you posted of the two monks crossing the river. I am still carrying the lady even though we have long finished crossing. A lot of the suffering I go through is concious though. Punishing myself for being such a horrible person in the past. How do I learn to let go of my need for justice for others I have harmed in the past? Often times I feel going back and trying to make ammends causes more grief than good. Drudging up the past with someone who has likely already moved on. Doing this would only be beneficial for me and would actually probably be hurting the victim even more in the process.

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Originally posted by CarsonZi

Not by harboring negative feelings for those who have harmed me, no. But by harboring negative feelings for myself for harming others, well maybe. Hmmm....I guess I am not solving anything, but more preventing future harm to others maybe?

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Originally posted by CarsonZi


Metta (Loving Kindness), Compassion, Appreciative Joy, and Equanimity. The teacher was talking about the need to forgive those who have done injustices to us. I was wondering how to reconcile your paragraph above with what this teacher was saying. Is there a need to forgive or does that just stroke the ego?

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Originally posted by Shanti


Forgiveness IMO is a very egoic word.. when I say I forgive you.. my ego is happy.. "I am above you.. that even though you hurt me.. I am better than you and I will pardon your misgivings".. Or when I say.. "I can never forgive you".. my ego is again sitting there with pride.. "I am above you.. and you cannot get away with treating me the way you did"... So in both cases.. forgive or not forgive is very ego driven. The real release will come when you are at a place (that can be reached with meditation and self inquiry) from where you look at the situation and say.. "There really is nothing to forgive or not forgive. It is what it is."

With Yoga and self inquiry.. you come to realize.. that karma is going to unfold.. it is upto us how we want to live through it. We can resist and hold on to our illusions of control.. or let go and accept things as they come. We learn to see a situation .. and accept it and move on.. or cling onto it and suffer. Any situation.. good or bad, that comes our way, when accepted from a central/neutral place.. where .. you don't have to love it (if it is not a good situation).. and yet you don't have to hate it. It is just there.. it is what it is.. and it is your choice to accept and let go.. or resist and let the negative feelings build.

Yoga will not change the world.. that is not what it is there for (although it may.. not sure..).. but it will change YOU.. your perspectives on life.. the way you see the world.. And now I am going to say the words you really dislike (sorry!!).. "Everything is perfect as it is"... How? Because it "is".. Reality of all the bad in the world is just "there".. and like I said.. yoga will teach you to be at a place where you don't have to love it.. and yet don't have to hate it.. be centered.. and from this place.. where you look at things without either extreme feelings attached.. you can take action and do things that are not affected by attachment or aversion.

So how does it fit into forgiveness.. or lack of.. well.. when you can see what happened between your brother and mother.. for what it is.. something between your brother and mother.. you can free yourself of the guilt that you should have been able to change the situation or she should have handled the situation differently.... Your mother is living through her karma.. your brother lived through his.. you are living your own.. and you have a choice of accepting it and moving on.. or clinging onto it and hoping and wishing you could have somehow changed things so your mother could have shown more love and care.. Remember, it is not our job to change anyone else.. we do have the choice of introducing people to the tools.. but it is their choice what they want to do with it.. Our responsibility is towards improving ourselves.. and when we are centered.. we will automatically be making decisions that will help others around us.

Not sure if this helps at all. But this has helped me a lot.. There were times I have said I forgive so-and-so.. but I realized.. every time I thought of all the wrongs that happened.. it still got back feelings of hate, sorrow, hurt, "why me?".. Well then, that was not forgiveness.. till I came to a point when I realized everyone is doing the best they can with their life, including me.. and the situation is what it is.. and I have a choice of opening, accepting, letting go and moving on.. or clinging on.. I chose the first.. wasn't easy.. but once you "get it" .... there is no turning back.. it becomes second nature.. (Try it with small things that annoy you at first..)

PS: This in no way means you sit and let the world abuse you and walk all over you.. You still take action.. but when you do it without attachment or aversion.. you just make decisions from your inner silence... and your silence always knows .. it's just a matter of staying centered.. and trusting this truth that comes up, accepting and letting go. Inner silence can be a deadly weapon.. when you learn how to use it... or better still.. let go and let it(inner silence) do it's thing :).

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Originally posted by emc
Sit down, close your eyes, go down into deep breathing and see yourself walking on a small road in a landscape. The sun is shining, fields are all around, birds fly in the sky. Walk there for a while until you feel at ease. You walk along the road and far away you see someone coming. You see them getting closer and closer but the picture is blurry. When they get close enough you see it is a child or some children coming towards you. Notice what state the child/children are in. What is the expression on their faces? What are they doing? When you have them there in front of you, you can ask them whatever you want, depending on what you see. I promise they will all have important things to tell you! They will reveal what you still carry around. And you can chose to listen to them, feel with them, and then if necessary comfort them in anyway you want. One possible sentence is "You do not have to carry that anymore. I now know how you feel, and I can carry it for you". This has been a very powerful tool for me to get to know myself. It is awareness SEEING WHAT IS, and then it burnes away more easily.

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Originally posted by Christi

I was also abused as a child, physically and psychologically. I carried it around for a long time, with a lot of anger and then depression. I knew that all I had to do was let go, but I never seemed able to. Then one day I did it. I thought I would write here what I did. This is a bit weird, so please just ignore it if you think it is too weird, or inappropriate. But it is a clear account of what happened in my case.
I sat down to meditate one day, but I could not concentrate because I kept thinking of the people who had abused me. This happened often. So I decided to give up even trying my usual meditation, and try a visualization instead. So I imagined myself on one side of a beautiful sunny field. On the other side of the field was one of the people who had abused me slightly in my past (start off slow). We both had bodies, but actually we were in our soul forms, and we were just projecting the bodies in order to play out this dance. In the visualization, we had both actually died, and left out earth lives behind, and were meeting again as a reconciliation process. We had played out our individual dramas and games, made our mistakes and learned all our lessons and now it was time for forgiveness and love. We ran towards each other, across the field (like on the movies) and fell into each others arms like we were brothers/ sisters that had not seen each other for years. We hugged each other and silently forgave each other for everything that had happened on earth. Then I would repeat the visualization with someone who had abused me quite a bit. Then again with someone who had abused me a lot. Each time it would get easier, and feel easier to forgive. Then I did it with the person who had really abused me for years (that was quite hard, but I could feel the love flowing between our hearts). Finally I did it with myself. That feels like a really important bit- I'm not quite sure why.

O.K. I told you it was a bit weird.
The whole exercise took around an hour (there were a lot of people). I repeated the whole thing three times a day, for ten days. That's 30 hours of this stuff. Since then when I think of anyone who has abused me in the past in any way, I feel only compassion and love towards them. If they asked me for help, I would do whatever I could to help them. My meditations have never once been disturbed by memories of abuse. And my ability to forgive and love both others and myself have increased one-hundred-fold.
I think if I had done this visualization for one hour it would not have worked. I believe that minds work like records. They have grooves in them. The record will play the same tune over and over, until we cut new grooves. So it took 30 hours of intense imaginative work for me to cut the new grooves. (I have never needed to do the visualization again since the end of those ten days.)

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