A Dharma Glimpse by Angela
I went dancing on Saturday with a group of friends. We shared the dance hall with a trapped pigeon. It had been stuck inside for a couple of days. Unable or unwilling to fly out of the open fire door to freedom.
Today this trapped pigeon feels like a metaphor for my resentment.
An early memory as a 2 year old recalls losing a tin of colourful beads during a holiday to Malta. I dropped the tin which scattered the beads over the floor of the apartment where they were soon covered with ants. The beads were thrown away. Sad about this loss, I replaced the beads with the memory, tagged with resentment at my mother, thrower awayer of the beads.
It has felt natural for me to collect resentments in my heart space like beads in a tin or pigeons in a dance hall. It felt important to do so as a safeguard against repetition of hurt and loss in the future.
It did not work. Painful experiences and losses still occurred with the regular natural frequency of life. Resentments progressively congested my heart space, and relationships were hampered and destroyed. I became the independent daughter that lives away, the depressed wife, the angry wife, the ex wife.
The rise and fall of new relationships offers me the golden opportunity of watching the arising of anger and resentment de novo. To study the anatomy of it and dissect down to my craving and aversion. I make a choice to cultivate openness to accept and tolerate the feelings of vulnerability and helplessness that arise when I can’t have what I want. Otherwise anger takes over, defensively masking these feelings. Left unattended this calcifies into resentment.
Opening the door and inviting resentment to fly out and leave my heart space is my current practice. Like the pigeon, fear keeps it from approaching the open doorway. It cannot be shooed out, it flaps about and retreats to the rafters. A regular gentle practice of surrender is required to release it, to patiently coax it to freedom.
…and then there will be all the poop to clean up.
Namo Amida Bu.