This week’s theme during the 100 Day Warrior is Acceptance & Forgiveness. Participants are invited to explore where in their lives they can or should add some of that. Obviously it will trigger many questions. Do I accept myself? Do I accept my body? Do I accept my shortcomings? Do I accept the shortcomings of others? Is forgiving myself an option?
If I take a look at my own day today I can see so much accepting and forgiving but also not accepting and hardly forgiving going on in the last twelve hours.
I started my workday with meditation. Since I have my own zendo I sit there every day and nowadays I have a few regular visitors from other companies in our building that meditate with me. Skipping crossed my mind though because I felt a bit ill. But I realized that I could sit with what is and serve others by showing up regardless. So I showed up, after some inner negotiating. My meditation was strong though. Clear and present, accepting the moment.
I had a meeting with my trainers somewhere around noon. I had to ride my bike through the city. There was this deceiving drizzle that makes you believe you won’t get that wet but you are wrong. While I was riding through the park I was practising to ‘embrace the drizzle’. It was not that easy. Should I resist the urge to speed up and try to outrace the drizzle or should I embrace my desire to try to remain as dry as I can (and race)? I did manage to find joy in observing my contemplation while riding in the rain.
During the meeting I embrace and enjoy ‘the other’. It is nice to hear my trainers talk about our participants. We care about all of them, we embrace their strengths, their progress and their weaknesses. I like to listen to the professional wisdom of my trainers when they evaluate the movement patterns of their clients and how they try to solve challenges. It is really easy to see all the players in the field (the participants, us) as unique souls with unique gifts and needs playing a game of sharing and growing. Acceptance and forgiveness is abundant now.
Then we enter a grainy part. I must address a topic that I find difficult to face. I feel fear in my body. I fear being judged and rejected for what I have to say. I fear not being accepted for my opinion and the way my words come out of my mouth. It is a situation where I desire forgiveness from others, people not in the room. And I desire recognition and acceptance from my trainers. Their response is helpful but the issue hasn’t been resolved yet.
After leaving my trainers behind near the cute coffee place I have to go meet one of my participants who is going through a hard time. The theme of our session turns out to be ‘The Possibility of Dying Soon’. Of course, when we feel our own death nearing we have no other option then to accept and forgive. It is the only way we can live freely during our remaining days. Everyday we waste on worrying about the inevitable is a day less lived. In our hearts we know this but for the ego it is hard not to panic. A guide my participant into a meditation that turns out to be exceptionally powerful. We find a boundless space of eternal acceptance and forgiveness. We can see how everything is completely perfect as it is. No molecule in this Universe is out of place. Life and death, sickness and suffering, bliss, wisdom, ignorance and fear are all perfect phenomena arising from the emptiness of consciousness.
In the end life is already perfect as it is. We are spending time on this tiny blue marble, spinning around its axis, cycling around one of the billions and billions of stars. When we realize that everything happens in this very moment and that we have nothing else than the here and the now we can surrender and bathe in consciousness. But at least for me, this realization comes and goes. Sometimes I feel it clearly, sometimes I struggle. And seen from the bigger picture that is perfectly ok too.
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