Every year in August, a dear friend calls up to say "Micchami Dukkadam". 'I am sorry". The Jain ritual of asking for forgiveness, to all your dear ones, everyone whom you may have wronged, knowingly or unknowingly, on the last day of the festival of Paryushana. Though you always joke about it, it moves you deeply, every single time. (Probably you joke the most about things that move you deeply, and do not want to acknowledge?)
For we cause the deepest hurt to the ones we care about the most, those whom we wished cared for us more, to complete the circle of reciprocity. For we suffer the most when we inflict suffering on them, seemingly with nonchalance.
For we expect so much more from them, than from random people who cut us in the queue or nearly hit us in the traffic. For it is on their approval, their validation, that we hang the meaning, the purpose of our lives, whatever else it is that we seemingly chase, in the mad scramble of our blind seeking. All roads, finally, lead to them, though we think we are firmly headed in the opposite direction. As always, intelligence, displaying its feet of clay, its powerlessness.
In the moments when you have jumped off the trapeze and are sailing through the air, and know for sure there's no one on the other side sending you a swing to hold on to, and no safety net below, this is what you would like to say:
Micchami Dukkadam.
For we cause the deepest hurt to the ones we care about the most, those whom we wished cared for us more, to complete the circle of reciprocity. For we suffer the most when we inflict suffering on them, seemingly with nonchalance.
For we expect so much more from them, than from random people who cut us in the queue or nearly hit us in the traffic. For it is on their approval, their validation, that we hang the meaning, the purpose of our lives, whatever else it is that we seemingly chase, in the mad scramble of our blind seeking. All roads, finally, lead to them, though we think we are firmly headed in the opposite direction. As always, intelligence, displaying its feet of clay, its powerlessness.
In the moments when you have jumped off the trapeze and are sailing through the air, and know for sure there's no one on the other side sending you a swing to hold on to, and no safety net below, this is what you would like to say:
Micchami Dukkadam.
1 comment:
This is an excellent postcoming a few days after Yom Kippur -- The Day of Atonement. I also can relate this to Jesus words on forgiving 70 x 7, Lent & Easter. Also Jesus words on the Cross, "Father forgive them because they know not what they do." As a spiritual study I'm looking into this concept within the Hindu and Buddhist faiths. Thank you for sharing.
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