Charlotte Joko Beck: “Somebody has to stop the process.”
Feb 6th, 2008 by Jill
“As I listen to many people talk about their lives, I am struck that the first layer we encounter in sitting practice is our feeling of being a victim — or feeling that we have been sacrificed to others. We have been sacrificed to others’ greed, anger, and ignorance, to their lack of knowledge of who they are. . .As we practice, we become aware of our anger about events, our desire to get even, our confusion and withdrawal and coldness; if we continue to practice (maintaining awareness, labeling our thoughts), then something different — though also painful — begins to arise in our consciousness. We begin to see not only how we have been sacrificed, but also how we have sacrificed others. This can be even more painful than our first realization. Especially when we act on our anger and resentment and try to get even, it begins to dawn on us that we are now sacrificing others, just as we have been sacrificed. . . .
If we are committed to healing, we want to atone. What does the word
atone mean? It means to be “at one.” We can’t wipe out what we’ve done in the past; we’ve done it. . . . Guilt doesn’t help. . . .
In true atonement, instead of focusing on our guilt, we learn to focus more upon our sisters and brothers, upon our children, upon anyone who is suffering. Such efforts can be genuine, however, only if we first deal with the initial layer — which is to become aware of all our thoughts, feelings, and our anger about what our life has been. Then we have to develop a sharp eye and a sharp sense of our present desire to sacrifice others. This is much more important: not what has been done to us, but what we are doing to others. Somebody has to stop the process. How do we stop it? We stop it when we move out of our bitter thoughts about the past and future and just begin to be here with what is, doing the best we can, noticing what we do. Once this process becomes clear, there is only one thing that we really want to do: to break that chain . . . If one person in ten in the world were to break the chain, the whole cycle would collapse; it would not have enough strength to maintain itself.”– Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special: Living Zen
