Let Go of Resentment to Find Peaceful Inner Space
by Rev. Cory Coberforward
Readings
Matthew 5:21-24
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
Micah 7:16-19 (responsive reading for live service)
Nations will see and be ashamed,
deprived of all their power.
They will put their hands over their mouths
and their ears will become deaf.
They will lick dust like a snake,
like creatures that crawl on the ground.
They will come trembling out of their dens;
they will turn in fear to the Lord our God and will be afraid of you.
Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin
and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Read the written message below with music videos
Anger can sometimes be a natural, healthy reaction to something, just as fear, happiness, and other feelings can be. But when the tie of anger binds our hearts (often, without us knowing it), by our returning to it again and again – stoking the flames and identifying with the feeling toward any one situation, we don’t allow ourselves the peace of our inner transcend-essence and the natural joy that can arise no matter the circumstances. Like with any feeling or thought, it is our identification with them that keeps us circling out of presence and peace into rumination and anxiety. Instead, using the ancient practice of Self-realization, may we let go of our hold on our mind’s unhelpful habits, and find the peace of our inner stability and the natural spaciousness of our loving hearts.
Our resentments and grudges often stem from an egoic mindset, which is our habitual identification with our identity and body, as well as the resulting “otherness” of the people around us. In our egoic mindset, which is the mindset we’re largely encouraged to cultivate in this day and age, we have a clear picture of who we are and what’s happened to us: we often tell ourselves stories about our lives and we project anxieties and many plans into the future. Not only that, but we never stop! Our minds don’t know what it means to notice the spaciousness within or how to uncover a lasting peace or joy.
Many of the sages of history, from Christ to Buddha, teach and encourage another way to live. They continuously point to the truth of our very nature, telling us to set aside our personal ruminations and worries, to look for it ourselves as the reality of what we are – something that cannot be put into words. These teachings emphasized how close peace, love, and joy is, as it is our fundamental beingness itself! What does this mean? Well, in practice it means that when a grudge comes up, or any other idea or feeling for that matter, we should start to notice that we are the observer of that grudge, the light that shines upon it.
When I was young, I got into a lot of fights (we’re talking elementary school here). Now, I can’t say that I held a lot of grudges, but it was easy for me to let my anger or what I thought was righteous resentment take a hold of me, dictating my thoughts and frequently my actions. But, reflecting on the times as a child when we were angry or resentful, we can easily see that many of those moments were entirely caught up in our deep entrenchment identified as the child we were: defensive about a toy, our authority, a need for control, our identity, our bodies, and so on. That isn’t to say that we were always wrong to react in anger, but we can see how often kids take things too far in their identification with the anger of the moment, leading to repeated tantrums, fights, or pain.
What’s funny is that kids are often better at letting things go than we are! Even when a kid is quick to turn to anger and resentment, the same kid will again and again let things go (sometimes, for the next resentment). Although we can be similar, we adults can have a more select list of resentments without even thinking of them that way, and we can hold onto these resentments for many years. And although we often think it is the best way to approach the world, our resentments stem from our constant inner life-storytelling stemming from our sense of hard and fast identity and egoic nature. In this state, we apply the same kind of storytelling towards others, continuously assuming that we know enough to pass judgment, even on things years in the past.
Part of the beauty of growing up is realizing that many of our grudges and judgments were unfair. As we learn and grow, we start to remember subtleties that were lost on us in the past, and we start to see some of the reasons for someone’s behaviour, or we come to know that we know very little. But sometimes, due to a strong reaction, we ignore the possibilities for subtleties or greater reasons, and, more importantly, we are too entrenched in our stories and identity to let our minds the peace of not ruminating and drudging up hard emotions!
The beauty of our sages’ teachings is that they nudge us to remember that any thought and any changeful sense of identity we have is something that we perceive from a place beyond identity or feeling. They ask us questions like, “What perceives your dreams as well as your waking? What knows how much you have changed since you were a kid?” With these questions they are not seeking conceptual answers but wanting us to notice within ourselves the answer. Or, like Christ, they point us to our fundamental nature by saying things like, “You are the light of the world.” They do this so that we may look at the essence of our thoughts, identities, and feelings, noting that it is the experiencing and open, loving awareness that makes us what we are, not all that other changeful stuff. And that there is a spacious light in us that is beyond any limited thought or concept. When we overidentify and invest in the limited and changeful, without investing at all in our fundamental beingness – in the heaven within, we are placing all our eggs in a basket with a big hole in it. As Christ tells us; instead, we should store our treasures in heaven, telling us that heaven is near and within.
One key practice that these sages seem to return to in order to help us “turn” (repent) to the heaven at our core is to watch our sense of “I” or “I am.” This includes noting that every thought or feeling we have stems from a sense of “I am,” either one of personal identity and ego or one of something higher, deeper, broader. Of course, even our egoic sense of “I am” stems from our more fundamental sense of it, but in order to notice that stable, more fundamental sense, we have to start to dispel the cobwebs of our sleep just as we would do any sleep: by looking, while gently and naturally paying attention to what is within.
What I believe is ultimately true, although hard to handle in our ego-centeredness, is the fact that we are all ultimately one, according to the sages. Even our modern quantum physics points to our deep entrenchment and connection with each other. This idea is uncomfortable only because we miss the essence of what it means to be one: we are already one in our most fundamental nature, we are all rooted in awareness itself, the light of the world. It’s just all the cobwebs of false identity that keep us from seeing this. It can be hard to look past the gripes, especially when our minds feel utterly convinced of their righteousness, when we believe our feelings of separateness and judgmentalness. However, when we step back from our habitual emotions and reactions in any given situation, including the grudges and the anger, noticing that we are in a place of “I am,” we can start to notice the native peace of who and what we are. The part of us that’s here, before we even knew our names, enjoying the differences between a dream of who we are and what we actually are.
Peace and love shine from you,
Rev. Cory