An ill wind

I just burnt myself by spilling boiling water over myself. I was making some Chinese herb tea to get healthier and the instruction asked for boiling water. I boiled the water in the microwave. Trust me that’s not the best way to boil water.

Anyway, I have the tea inside a steel strainer and the cup was full. So when I put the strainer in the cup the boiling water overflowed onto my leg. The burning made me spill more water over my hand which burnt even more…

I am healing my hand by cooling it on some ice and using self hypnosis. Anyway, so this experience forced me to get over my writer’s block.

Talking about tea and overfull cups:

A professor wanted to learn about Zen Buddhism. So he went to a Zen monastery and asked the master to teach him about Zen. The master invited the academic to a tea ceremony. He gave a cup to the professor and started to pour the tea. The cup was a quarter full, half full, three quarters and soon overflowed….
The professor shouted, “What are you doing? It is over full.”
The master replied, “You too are over full. You need to empty yourself first before I can teach you about Zen.”

In the same way it is best to empty ourselves of our prejudices (prejudgments) in order to allow new knowledge and experiences in.

By now my leg and fingers are no longer burning a huge amount and I made the next cup of tea. This time I learned my lesson and put the right amount of water and placed the cup on a saucer so even if there was some spillage there would be no problem.

The point is that one learns from being burnt by inanimate objects and moves on. Unfortunately when we are hurt by human beings (others or ourselves) we take it personally and we make the hurt stronger. The way to overcome hurt (by human beings) is through forgiveness of self and others and compassion and loving kindness .

Forgiveness is the linchpin of all my change work. So I use it as part of my private practice as well as in all my seminars. Thus, if you wish to stop smoking we will do some forgiveness work. However, the general issue is getting over the effects of all negative emotions.

Now, suppose you burned your finger on an oven when you were two years old. Hopefully you learned from that experience and stopped burning your hands on the oven. The important thing is that you don’t go around moping complaining about the oven saying, “My oven didn’t treat me right. The oven burnt me and I was only two years old. No wonder I’m such a …..”

But we do go around blaming our parents for things they may have done when we were very young. First, get over it. You are an adult now. More importantly even though you have free will imagine everyone else is an automaton. If others are the equivalent to ovens, you may learn from negative experiences without resentment.

When I do my forgiveness guided meditation I say, “Understanding that at each time we do the best possible given the resources we have forgive the person who has harmed you.” Once you understand that we harm each other not out of hatred or evil but out of weakness and lack of internal resources, life will be so much easier.

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