The Fiery Tiger, the Weary Kitten

When you say or do anything to please, get, keep, influence, or control anyone or anything, fear is the cause and pain is the result.

~ Byron Katie

Whenever I am pissed off, the latest being yesterday, I could see the familiar trail the ego takes to finally culminates itself in upset. It begins with wanting – and it all started from fear. I wanted my wife to stay cool over an event that I knew will blew my top if she reacts – there is an obvious fear here that I do not want history to repeat itself. Funnily, I already knew what is going to come, and I never take the step to be aware of myself, but instead try to fix what is out there. And this has been the same pattern occurring again and again – isn’t that insanity at its greatest height – expecting it to be different? And one of my teacher has a better way of doing it, instead of just being aware – just create what I will like the outcome to be instead of predicting what I am going to experience. I seldom heed his advice and thus I have to relearn again and again the stupidity of ignorance.

And as nature always is, I can’t stop my wife from reacting – and the next moment, before I knew it (or rather I already knew it beforehand), I was upset for the reaction. So my meditation teacher’s advice keeps ringing in my head – we can’t get what we want, what we get is only suffering. Arrgggh…. Then the wakeup call came – it is not because of her reaction that I am upset. It is the similar pattern of pathway that I have experienced over and over again that I am already knowing what is coming my way – irrelevant whether it comes from my wife or anyone else for that matter. What a bitter news!

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you.

– A Course In Miracles

And so I was with this upset for the reamining day, “lovingly” being with it – it was far from the truth. I was just kidding myself, as I could see how insidious and poisonous my words are whenever a conversation was held between me and her. It has the wanting of getting even – a revengeful thought, with an obnoxious facial expression, coupled with a deadly statement –  a battle of revenge. How painful the mind was!

Evening came and I was doing a session of meditation. A child, brought along by her mother, was making some little “noise” from the pens she placed on the whiteboard holder, each time she changes a colour. Even that, the upset is directed at the child, and at the mother who brought her along. How horrendous the mind is! So it is exactly what Yeshua said: I am not upset for the reason I think it is. This reminder jolted me out from my delusional anger.

After a day of painful journey, a burning mind, an unresolved internal conflict, the fiery tiger turns into a weary kitten – tired and exhausted from the fight of the ego, from not taking responsibility for the delusion of grasping – a time for peace to enter, to apply what the old masters have taught – forgiveness. Forgiving the world for what they have not done. And there I was, seated  stoically, reclaiming the power I have given out to the world, coming into peace with my own imaginary upset. I sat and sat until the moment I fully come into reconciliation of my own inflicted dis-ease – the so called “noise” that came from the child disappears, as she walks out from the meditation premise – indeed a miracle that comes from choosing from rightmindedness.

Indeed a lesson of love to choose correctly again…

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