An anonymous Dharma Glimspe
As a practicing Buddhist trying to lead my life with a positive mindset and an outlook to an enriched life of wellbeing and tranquillity, I found my mind wondering down that negative road. And no matter how hard you meditate, occasionally those negative thoughts enter your mind and internally you find yourself having a negative thought or feeling about others. A wave of shame that this thought had entered my mind fulfils me and as I remind myself ‘that’s not very Buddhist of you’ I feel a sense of calm that this thought has not been shared with others. Furthermore, as a Buddhist shouldn’t my mind swarm with sunshine and butterflies. Afterall at the temple during practice, I make the prostration that I will not fall into wrong speech, surely this should be the vocal and the inner voice.
I find myself at the gym bright and early for my weekly yin yoga class, as always, I arrive early to ensure I get my favourite spot. At the back in the corner and away from sight of others and a sense of relief when I can see that yes, this space is free. A selfish thought as others may also want this space and perhaps as someone who has attended this class for over a year now should enable somebody less confident this prime spot.
I am sat ready in the shakshuka easy pose waiting for the teacher to arrive and listening to the usual complaint of the man next to me that the teacher is yet again late and how this inconveniences his practice, when I notice somebody new in the class. She appears confident in all dimensions and has the yoga body we all wish for, what I noticed the most about this person was that she couldn’t leave her long blonde hair alone. She constantly took it out, put her hands through it, brushed it and repeated this several times, she looked in the walled mirrors as she did this and at one point got up and walked past me to the bin. She cleared her hairbrush of hair and stood up in front everyone to repeat her sequence of hair styling before returning to her mat as if she was a feather floating through the breeze.
It was at this point the negative thought entered my mind ‘we have a right one here, body confident, hair lover, who does she think she is’ as quickly as this thought entered, I reminded myself that this is not very Buddhist and she clearly takes great pride in how she looks and her gorgeous long blonde hair. It was at this point we made eye contact, and we smiled at each other, a silent apology on my behalf and how thank full I felt that she would never know this negative judgment I had just made about her.
The yoga teacher arrives in a flurry sending her apologies about running late as she desperately sets up her mat and salt lamps and prepares the music for the class, the man next to me sends his usual grunt of annoyance at her tardiness and I am just relieved the class is about to start.
The yoga teacher completes her usual ritual of welcoming us all to her class and asks is there anybody new or anything she should know before the class starts.
I noticed the lady with the hair speak up ‘I’m not new but I havent been for a while as I am just recovering from my second bout of chemotherapy’ my heart absolutely sank, this woman wasn’t showing of her long hair, but she was noticing her own hair falling out, she was putting the stands that came out of her head in the bin. Her vulnerability was portrayed as confidence, but she was secretly fighting her own battle of self-confidence. I wondered how many other people in the class had noticed this women when she arrived and made their own negative judgments and just like me now felt shame.
I thought about this woman all day as I hung my washing out, walked the dogs, tried to read my book and reflected on my day when I got into bed. I thought about how wrong I was to judge and why I allowed this thought to enter my mind. Even though I didn’t verbalise this judgment to others, I still thought it and allowed myself to judge. Did this happen as a reminder that we don’t ever know what anybody is going through, that we cannot peel back everyone’s onion skins to know what’s happening in their worlds and that we should always be kind even within our own inner voice as we truly do not know what anybody is really going through.
The following week at yoga I choose a different spot in the room, and I smiled and said hello to the woman who currently still has her head of hair and stilled brushed it and restyled it but this time I looked at her and thought ‘ you look absolutely beautiful’.