Three of Swords — Spiritual Message of the Day

When you feel that you’re suffering because of what someone else has done, ask yourself, who put those swords into your heart? The common answer is that the other person stabbed you in the heart, but really, you’ve done it to yourself. Or at the very least, you have continued to twist the swords that are there, keeping the wound open, rather than removing the swords to let the wound heal. Consider the following Zen parable:

Two monks were returning to their monastery one day. Heavy rains the night before had left puddles all along the road side, and at one point the monks came upon a young woman who was stopped, unable to continue because of an especially large puddle. The elder of the two monks lifted her and carried her across the puddle. The two men then continued on their journey, but the younger one walked along in quiet agitation.
That evening, he approached the elder monk and said, “Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman. Isn’t that true?”
The elder monk answered “Yes, brother.”
Tight-lipped, the younger monk then stated, “But Sir, you lifted that woman!”
The elder monk smiled and said, “Ah, but I left her on the other side of the road. You are still carrying her.”

(For another version of this story, and a hundred more Zen tales, see Zen Flesh, Zen Bones by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki.)

If you hold thoughts of pain, anger, or resentment in your heart, they will hurt you more than the other person. Letting go of such thoughts isn’t easy, though, so what might help us do that? Consider the following quote from the book The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta by Swami Prabhavananda.

There is only one way to feel sincerely reconciled [with someone who has wronged you], and that is to try to see God in all beings, and to love Him in all. If you have been angry with your brother, pray for him as you pray for yourself—pray that both of you may grow in understanding and devotion to God.

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