Is it
possible to regularly participate in our own “Salvation?” I think so.
Whatever
salvation might be in eternity, right now it’s mostly about healing and wholeness.
Becoming freed from what keeps our
souls hard and small. Becoming freed for
loving God and our neighbors as our ‘selves.’
Mindfulness
is a way to participate in this whole-making process—at its most basic
understanding and in its most profound embodiment.
The
following is another passage from Jack Kornfield’s, The Wise Heart, that describes
and illustrates simple participation in salvation.
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When we
learn to be mindful of mental states, we also begin to see the ways that they
are habitual, how conditioned they are. Modern neuroscience tells us that our
past reactions are engraved onto the synapses that send messages from one
neuron to another, making them more likely to send the same message in the
future. Paying attention, we recognize how often a moment’s experience is
followed by an immediate reaction. It can be shocking to realize how impersonal
and habitual our responses are. But gradually we realize that mindfulness gives
us the option to choose a healthier response.
A meditation
student, Jeremy, told me about a difficult encounter with a former friend,
Zach, who had betrayed him in a business deal. Previously, whenever Jeremy
encountered Zach, he experienced the sight of his friend together with the
arising of affection, excitement, and happiness. Now seeing Zach, there arose
the mental qualities of anger, sadness, worry, and unhappiness.
In these two
scenarios, the sense experience of meeting Zach is the same. The critical
difference is the mental qualities that arise with the experience. Because he
lived nearby, Jeremy regularly encountered Zach. They had tried to talk to each
other; they had even tried mediation. Still the feelings of anger and
resentment persisted. At the sight of Zach there followed an automatic response
conditioned by the betrayal. Jeremy could feel his mind and body contract in
pain as the memory arose again.
With the
next encounter, instead of replaying the story of how he had been wronged for
the five hundredth time, Jeremy paused. Feeling the pain, he inquired deeper.
Yes, there was hurt. But he had already done what was necessary to prevent
further loss. Breathing gently, he could notice that there was no new problem,
that his states of mind were the result of past conflict. He breathed again and
let the anger and agitation be there, held in mindfulness, without feeding
them. They began to subside, and a quiet relief arose. As his ex-friend walked
by, Jeremy could acknowledge the betrayal, but he didn’t have to dwell in the
unhappy states.
In this
simple act of looking at his states, Jeremy had taken a step toward
understanding and liberation.
As Ajahn
Chah taught, “When you have wisdom, contact with experience is like standing at
the bottom of a ripe mango tree. We get to choose between the good and rotten
mangoes. It is all to your profit, because you know which fruits will make you
sick and which are healthy.” By training ourselves in mindfulness we begin to
see clearly the healthy and unhealthy fruit. As we practice mindfulness with pleasant
and unpleasant experiences, we discover the power of the mindfulness to allow a
healthy response to whatever arises.
