Be grateful to your detractors too – because they are
teaching you what Life is! They are showing you a dimension you aren’t aware of
and which you can learn from.
Often times when people are unkind and unjust
to us, we end up disliking them. We carry anger and grief within us which soon
turns into hatred. This is undoubtedly a natural response. But there’s another
way of looking at such people. Be grateful to them – for they are teaching you
what Life and people can also be.
There’s a story about a Zen Master. He was on a
pilgrimage and he came to a village at sunset and begged for lodging for the
night, but the villagers slammed their doors. They were against Zen. They
didn’t allow the Master to stay in the village; they threw him out. It was a
cold night, and the old man was with no lodging, nowhere to go.…he was tired
and hungry. He had to make the cold stone steps of a dilapidated temple,
outside the village, his shelter. It was really cold, and he could not sleep
well. He kept hearing animal noises through the night – and that kept him on
the edge too!
At midnight he awoke — because it was
unbearably cold — and saw the reflection of the full moon in the temple pond in
front of him. A few lotus buds floated in the pond. The moon’s reflection
amidst these lotuses made the moment look very surreal. Overcome with the
beauty of what he saw, he sat up and bowed in the direction of the village. “Through
their kindness in refusing me lodging I found myself on these cold temple steps
and saw this immensely beautiful sight of the full moon’s reflection in the
pond’s shimmering water,” he thought to himself. He felt grateful. He thanked
those people who refused him lodging, otherwise he would be sleeping inside
someone’s home and he would have missed this blessing — the beautiful moon, and
its magical reflection in the temple pond, amidst the lotuses, and this silence
of the night, this utter silence of the night. He was not angry. He accepted his
shelterless, cold moment that night. And he welcomed it with great gratitude.
Osho, the Master, while narrating this story,
has said: “A man becomes a Buddha the moment he accepts all that Life brings
with gratitude.”
I have found great value in holding this perspective.
Every time someone is rude to me or criticizes me without knowing the full
story or opinionates and passes judgment based on what they think I must be
doing, I let that moment of anger and grief pass. I don’t deny that I feel
anger and grief at such times. I do. But I let that moment pass. My awareness
then reminds me that this painful moment is actually a blessing to practice
forgiveness and patience. Like the Zen Master’s cold night became a blessing to
witness the beauty of the moon and its reflection in the temple pond, I too find that each unpleasant encounter with
a detractor turns into a blessing when I treat it with gratitude. Doing this is
not difficult. All it requires is awareness and practice. When you
are grateful, and not agitated in trying times, you are peaceful.
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