Welcome to my weekly blog, Friday Feelings !

Last week, I wrote about the wonderful Dr Len and how he healed all those patients in Hawaii who were diagnosed as criminally insane. His method, the ancient Hawaiian practice of Ho'oponopono, focuses on the following:                           

a) I forgive you; b) I'm sorry; c) I love you; d) Thank you. 

Many people will just laugh at that.They know that such phrases are overused or used insincerely or expediently, i.e. out of self-interest (small 's' J) .

Maybe one needs to examine what these phrases really mean.

Today, we'll just look at that first phrase, I forgive  you.

But what does it mean?

The problem with the word  forgive, as in, I forgive you, is that it seems to place "I" on a higher judicial or moral platform than "YOU":                                                              
"I" (Yes. Me.) "Forgive" (Yeah, I know I'm a good guy)  "You" (Yes, you over there). 

So part of the problem is the pronoun ( "I" and "You").                                                  

Some people won't forgive or even accept forgiveness, even though they might have already ostensibly buried the hatchet.  'How dare she forgive me! '  they think.  'Who does she think she is? I'm the one who should be doing the forgiving!'

Of course, when you don't forgive, it's like holding a hot coal in your hand to throw it at the offender, as the Buddha put it.                                                              

So what exactly does the word forgive mean?  

We know that it's linked to its Germanic cousin, vergeben, geben meaning to give; the ver part of the German word  - the v is pronounced as  f  in German, so the  v eventually turned into the  f  in the  for prefix in English -  seems to have come from the original Latin per, meaning through, as in the Latin perdonare, donare to give, perdonare  to forgive, (we have the word pardon from that), which presumably means to give through and through, to give completely. Give what?  Give away any wish for retribution, I guess, completely give up any desire for revenge, something like that.  Hence,  forgiveness.                       

No wonder it's confusing!...K

The Irish word for forgiveness is maithiúnas (mah-hoo-nass); maitheas (mah-hass) means goodness. You could say it is the giving of goodness. The mother kisses the naughty child; that makes more sense than saying, 'I forgive you' !  Now that makes more sense to me.

Nevertheless, I feel that in forgiveness there is no giving or receiving. You see, there is nothing to forgive. Real forgiveness is always to accept the wrong-doer but never, of course, the wrong-doing. Society should punish the wrong-doing, not the wrong-doer. How do you punish the wrong-doing without punishing the wrong-doer?  By never confusing the doer with the deed.                                                                                                                                       

Punishing  the wrong-doer is punishing ourselves. Forgiving others is really forgiving ourselves for being asleep, for the unconscious action of being asleep at the wheel.  

So who was Dr Len forgiving?  He was forgiving himself. As he said himself, he was forgiving that part of him which created the conditions in which crimes were committed by the patients he had never seen.                                                                 

But, I hear you cry, Dr Len is not his patients!

Of course not. You're right. Dr Len is Dr Len. The patients are the patients.         

You are not your reflection.

But your reflection is clearly you.

Well, that's what I feel, anyway.

What do YOU think?

Welcome to my weekly blog, Friday Feelings!

I just can't get away from that mirror!  Remember?

You are not your reflection, but your reflection is clearly you.

Last week I wrote about Ho'oponopono, the ancient Hawaiian practice  of reconciliation and forgiveness, and how a local therapist was able to heal all those criminally insane people at the hospital without even seeing them.

In the course of the interview, the humble Dr Len also said:

'I was simply healing the part of me that created them.'

I have a feeling that if we can understand that statement, it will literally change the world.

Gandhi's famous words were, You must be the change that you wish to see in the world. 

Most people think that this is about being a good example. You know, the Golden Rule.

Well, that's partly it, of course.

But it's much deeper, much more profound, much more radical than that.

You see, you are responsible for what's happening in the world. 

Who? Me?

Yes.

Your reflection is clearly you.

To be honest, I can't pretend that I really understand it myself.  But I'm trying.  Really. I'm trying hard to understand it. To really understand it.  

(Maybe I should't try so hard! J)

Anyway, there are just four key concepts in Ho'oponopono: 

a) I forgive you; b) I'm sorry; c) I love you; d) Thank you.

That's all. You just say that. With feeling, of course.

Is that it?

That's it.

But what does it mean?

It means what it says.

But it's trite! you plead.  It's ridiculous!

True. All four phrases have become trite and ridiculous.

In next week's Friday Feelings, we'll have a closer look at the F-word, the S-word, the L-word and the T-word.

In the meantime, I'll be thinking about the incredible Dr Len and his wonderful quote. 

I hope one day I'll understand it.                                                                                       

I hope one day we'll all understand it.

And the world will live as one...🎶

Well, that's my feeling anyway.

What do YOU think?

Welcome to my weekly blog, Friday Feelings!

Here's a little story to follow up on last week's Friday Feelings...

You are not your reflection, but your reflection is clearly you.

Some years ago in Hawaii, a psychiatric hospital on the island also served as a kind of a prison for the criminally insane. Doctors and nurses were unable to work on that ward for very long because it was so disturbing and the patients were apparently beyond recovery.

Eventually, in desperation, the hospital employed a local therapist who decided to use his own treatment: no electric shock therapy, no drug therapy and most surprisingly of all, no psychotherapy of any kind;  no 1:1 sessions with the patients.

So what was he doing there?

He simply studied the file of each individual patient.

Gradually, their mental and emotional health began to improve. In fact, in less than four years, each and every patient was well enough to be released and the ward was closed!

What was the secret?

'Everything in your life is a program,' said the healer. 'I erase the program.'

He could feel the problems from their files. He noted what he felt and 'cleaned' what he felt and as he did, the patient in question got better.

It's called Ho'oponopono.

How was this possible? we may ask. The healer is the healer is the healer! He is not the patient!  Of course he isn't. That's true.  He is not the patient. 

After all, you are not your reflection.

But your reflection is clearly you.

This, I believe, is what Gandhi meant when he said, Be the change...

All healing is spiritual. And you and your reflection are one.

Well, that's my feeling anyway.

What do YOU think?

Welcome to my weekly blog, Friday Feelings!

I have a feeling that discussing # 169 from our Insights Archive is going to be the most difficult blog of all - I'm having difficulties explaining it to myself! J

As promised last week, here's the complete couplet from the old Zen poem, The Jewel Mirror Samadhi (the poem is still chanted as a sutra in some Zen monasteries in Japan, I believe):

Like gazing into a jewel mirror, form and reflection view one another;

You are not your reflection, but your reflection is clearly you.

But what does it mean?

Phew!... The monks understand it intuitively, I'm sure; they don't have to put it into words.                                                                                              

In the past hundred years, however, quantum physics has made it easier for us in the western world to understand the second line.  Oops! Sorry!... I'll have to re-phrase that:

In the past hundred years, I am led to believe that quantum physics can help us understand that second line. There's no way that I understand quantum physics, I just have to believe it, I have to believe the physicists; after all, every physicist in the world says it's the most accurate science ever - even though none of them has ever seen at atom!                              

According to quantum physics, the world as we know it does not exist - it's just a fuzz of vibrations - until we 'collapse' it into existence, just by being our conscious selves.                                                 (Speaking of vibrations, by the way, where/when does a vibration begin or end? J)     

Quantum entanglement states that there is no separation at all, in time or in space!               

The physicists have been telling us for the last hundred years that we are intimately connected with everything in existence. And that we - and everything else in existence - are 99.999% empty space.     (I can hear those Zen monks chanting, Shunyata! 😊  )

But let's park that for now.

Three million. Think of that number for a moment.  3,000,000.

Think of three million children. Three million children in a huge playground. Imagine the noise, the delight, the fun, the shrill clamour of spontaneous joy and giddy excitement!

Currently, at least three million children die every year because they don't have food.

Sometimes, the headlines grab our attention for a while when they state that a child dies every ten seconds for lack of food, even there's more than enough food in the world to feed everybody. 

So who or what is responsible for this? Climate change and crop failures? Partially. The governments involved? Partially. Greed, inequity, capitalism gone mad? Partially. We ourselves, reading this blog? Partially.

But then, it's not necessarily about responsibility for others; it's about responsibility for ourselves. You see, one could actually say that we ourselves are the children.

"But I'm not the children!" you respond, defensively. "I'm me!"                                

Of course you are you.  As you rightly say, You are not your reflection. Very true.                        

But your reflection is clearly you.                                                                                                                               

You are also the children.

You are the mindless terrorist, you are the hapless victim, you are the bereaved family, mourning the loss of your loved one.   

The 17th century English poet, John Donne, wrote, 'Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind...'  He could equally have said, 'Any child's death diminishes me because, even though I'm me, I and the child are one'.  

We are not the children, of course.  But the children are clearly us.

Even a recognition of this fact will help create real change. You don't have to do anything at all; you don't have to work with any of the large number of national and international organisations addressing the never-ending problem of hunger in an unjust world.  

That's what Gandhi meant when he said Be the change...

You see, when you change, your reflection changes. And then everything changes.

Well, that's my feeling anyway.

What do YOU think?