Episode 20: Karmic Stain Remover - Making Amends

0:08 Welcome, you are listening to the podcast, a resonant life produced. By the time is now Productions. I am Mike Thompson, your host, and reflector and chief. In this podcast, we will discuss experiences and insights, from living a life devoted to uncovering the authentic self. And finding fulfilling purpose from the past, the present and the future. This podcast is a product of my life and experience and I'll share my opinions. Opinions between people are various and we don't all need to hold the same wants, but it is fun to hear the opinions of others as it gives us an opportunity to freshen up our own. If you enjoy and gain Insight from listening, Please Subscribe.

0:59 And share. If you have questions, please email them. And as always, nothing you hear here is a prescription or a prescription. It is a discussion of life and life's internal and external experiences. So, let's get to it. And welcome. Welcome again. Thank you for joining me in a discussion of uncovering, our authentic cells and charting a horse in our lives. That will result in abiding, happiness, not just for ourselves but for others as well.

1:42 So, and this is episode 22 me. This feels like a milestone, and I want to do a little happy. A dance to celebrate our time and work together, but my happy dance is a little embarrassing. So I'll wait till later when I'm alone, I guess. Okay. So to the topic of discussion for today, today we'll talk about confession and repentance confess, repent? Okay, okay. Okay, those two words are wildly loaded and Toxic really their conversation Stoppers especially for those who've had them used as Weapons against them in their lives and I think that includes a lot of us. So that's said, in our spiritual lives, it is very difficult to move forward to deepen, our practice and open our hearts fully, if we are carrying around unresolved negativity and denying responsibility, For any harms or hurts. We've caused others throughout the course of Our Lives. In the Buddhist view.

2:57 These negativities these hurts and harms their negative Karma. They are negative actions of body speech and mind. And thus, they keep us tethered and tied limiting our ability to really expand our capacity to be open. Joyful people living in sustained and abiding happiness in our daily lives. And it is important to realize that when we create negative karma for ourselves, most likely we are creating negative karma for others as well.

3:39 They will react negatively to our negative actions They will do. They will feel anger, they will respond. They'll fight back, whatever it might be. And that creates - they create their own - Comer based on the negative Karma, we've caused for them. So, we've talked about the virtuous circle. We're good begets. Good positivity, creates more positivity. This is the opposite. This is a - Circle a spiral of negative Karma that spreads like a disease and we bear the Ility for all of that, that which we caused.

4:20 Beyond what we do today or have done just yesterday. The weight of This Means negative Karma beyond what we've done today or yesterday in terms of negativities created harms and hurts and inconveniences, whatever it might be the weight of long past hurts and harms. We carry their like a psychic crust, which affects our actions in the present. So we've got the negativities we might be creating today or in the recent past. But we've also got this long past stuff all the way through. Course of our lives and we carry this. And it affects our actions in the present as I said it's like - muscle memory negativities beget more negativity snark. Invites more snark, insults.

5:18 Prepare the ground for more insults. Selfishness it. Recedes our heart and our mind with more selfishness. So you get the point. and in this sense, our interactions with others will then be less, loving less kind and generous than we intend. The lens of negativity can warp, how we interact with others and act and move in our lives. How we engage our families, our communities, our workplaces Etc. There's this warping effect.

6:00 So in truth, don't we want all the people in our lives to feel loved cared for valued cherished? Don't we want all of Our words, thoughts actions to be ones that help. That support that lift up those around us, as we lift others. So are we ourselves lifted? I was talking with a friend the other day and he mentioned he would be having lunch with another Mutual acquaintance of ours, after a long time of not seeing each other.

6:47 My response was oh ha. Mmm, I've always found that person to be difficult to be around. In response to that my friend was suddenly very silent. For what became an uncomfortable amount of time. And in that silence, what's really did seem to stretch for quite some time, I realized that what I'd said and the feeling behind it that I found our acquaintance difficult to be around. This was a harm specifically.

7:30 It was a harm of speech. Remember we talked about body speech and mind the three vehicles by which we cause actions. So how is it a harm? How is it a cause of hurt? How is it negative Karma? Expressing my feeling of this person, being difficult to be around. How is it a harm? So most obviously I guess I was speaking negatively about someone else, even if it was couched in my experience of being with him I was being clever. Really it was a negativity was - speech about someone else. So what possible good or positive comes from sharing?

8:14 That doesn't make my friend feel better, the one I'm talking to? No, not a bit. In fact, it can hurt him also and maybe it did because he was letting me know this through his silence. Does it make me feel better? No. How could it make me feel better other than me taking pleasure from casting negativity on another I don't want to be a person who takes pleasure and trashing others. That's not who I want to be. So it is, it, is it even a hurt to the person whom I was referring? Who wasn't in the conversation?

8:58 Who didn't hear it? Yes. It was how well a couple of things. My friend, when he's with him, is going to be thinking about that. That will taint. And he suddenly but it'll taint things. It'll create a little - seat of something in there between them. How else? It means I'm not going to be in a positive and open and giving state of mind and heart when I'm next with this person. This acquaintance whom I was describing as difficult to be around because I'm thinking he's difficult to be around and then even more my negativity could get back to this person - - words are like viruses they spread they mutate. they, in fact, So, so I was horrified with myself, to be honest, I was not walking the walk.

10:05 I was not walking the talk. I was not living a resonant life with those feelings and comments. I was not being altruistic or being kind in any way. Boom. So it's so easy to step down or maybe it's falling down. It's easy to step down from the pedestal of high-minded aspirations, right? It's so easy to just be Thoughtless and cause hurt and harm The moment we are not thinking not being intentional, the moment, we are not being intentional, which is most of the time, right? We're not intentional.

10:55 Most of the time, it is. Those times when we hurt when we cause problems, that we cause harm, no matter how minor that is when we create negative karma, when we are not thinking, when we are not being intentional, when we're not, not engaged in our project consciously Looking at this realization. This reality and truth that we spend exponentially more time creating negative Karma than we do creating positive Karma. Looking at this realization, it is overwhelming, it's a little depressing and it's a depressing and defeating realization. At least, at least it is if we aren't using the remedy the antidote.

11:50 Ah, so there is a remedy. There's an antidote and there is, there is, there is a practice by which we can purify by, which we can reverse the negativity and replace it with positivity, with positive Karma with Merit. And this is what we've been working on. This is our project to uncover the authentic. Self. Becoming more intentional more of the time becoming more focused and positive more of the time having more energy spent being altruistic more time being awake and aware of what we're doing.

12:33 What we're saying and what we're thinking more of our time and energy continuously focused on these things, harnessing the Wild stampeding Horses of our mind. And throughout this project of ours. We've been using mind hacks meditations and intentional practices of action to do this. And as always, we also use the recognition of making a so-called mistake to not beat ourselves up to not punish ourselves to not just go. Oh crap. But rather to stop and wake up a mistake, realized is a treasure. Right, especially if we realize that in the moment of making the mistake. and as I did with, with my friend, in that conversation, and with his help, So this this waking up in the moment to the mistake and using it as a trigger, this is a treasure because we can stop right there and fix it. We can correct it.

13:43 We can apply the remedy and the antidote in the moment and take that moment of negative Karma and turn it around. And I I shared what that remedy and antidote are at the very beginning of our discussion today. The topic of this discussion confession, repentance Okay, we can certainly find better less toxic words, right. Let's work with these words. How about owning? And remedying confession is owning remedying is repentance.

14:30 So I myself, I am a work in progress, I am nowhere near complete so to speak and as a work in progress, I make mistakes. I make errors, I caused misunderstandings, I hurt others with my words sometimes. I ended my daily life. Create a lot of negative Karma, I don't want to but this is life. So but but but I am trying to awaken I am trying to uncover my authentic self and be a help to others 100% of the time.

15:15 And so I do my best to use the antidote this antidote Owning and remedying, I own my mistakes as much as I can, when I become aware of them, I own them. I admit to myself, I did this. I made this happen. I caused this. I caused someone to be hurt. Hurt or sad or angry or upset me my words my actions driven by my thoughts. this is what I did when I was talking to my friend, I broke the long Silence by saying, yeah, I guess that isn't a very nice thing to say or think is it? He laughed, I owned it and then I apologized. I apologize to him.

16:14 I made amends. And then I went one step further. I thanked him for helping to see myself making a mistake, he was like a mirror and I got to watch myself thoughtlessly and mindlessly Bertha negativity into the world completely unnecessary. To say what I said to even think and feel what I was thinking. And feeling about that person, that third person Now, do you see how my train of thought is working?

16:54 How I'm unwinding the stream of events in reactions. I'm full on the highway of Mind hex. Now, here's the chain. I owned. I made amends. Then I expressed and sincerely felt gratitude to my friend and zooming the lens back. I'm looking at how I feel negatively about a person and asking myself why? Boom that's another trigger. A trigger to apply a mind hack thinking of this person who made me think negatively, okay, let's let's override that let's think of this person with compassion. Let's think of this person is someone we can support someone. We can assist be kind to, at the very least. And doing this digging in and going deep, I can feel my heart open.

17:57 I can feel it expand and, you know, sometimes it's hard to own, right? Sometimes you just get close. You push back. No, I didn't do anything wrong. No, I'm right. No, no, no, I'm good. I'm right. I'm right. And you're just closes in, right? so that closing in that's something to recognize as well, if you're closing in, if you're denying, if you're saying no, if you're not accepting then You need to turn that around because that's showing you. Yes. Yes, I need to own this. Yes, yes, I did that. Yes, I accept this. I own it.

18:41 So. Okay. So this won't be the last time I say a gossipy snarky thing about someone to someone else. I'm human. But catching those moments fishing for snarks, a catching them. Stepping back looking at And seeing where they come from, owning them making amends converting the snark to something positive, then allowing gratitude to fill me, gratitude for being able to do this, exercise to clean up my mess gratitude to do something positive instead, so that's a way to live differently in the present. But we still carry around with us the weight and toll of past negative Karma of past harms hurts, wounds ills that we've caused others Buddhists emphasize. This negative karma is not only from this life. But as inclusive of all infinite, previous lives. That's a lot of bad stuff hanging around our necks. That's a lot of Bad Karma so so that we don't get overwhelmed and bogged down because that is overwhelming that's just like can't even swallow that one.

20:05 So instead of getting bogged down in that and overwhelmed the defeated, let's focus on this life. Let's focus on the life we're in right now, and the past we presently carry with us. If we do this, the rest will To sort itself out. So how do we own and make amends for negative actions words and thoughts from our past past meaning years, right? So there are two basic methods and Buddhist practice. the first is to set aside time routinely They leave possible set aside time and reflect, and this is meditation reflect on our past dislikes.

20:51 And the people who are connected to them, recall, the things we did or said, Two people we didn't like or thought of as enemies competitors. Our opponents Think of them. Recall them recall, the things we did or said you get the picture one by one. Do it one by one step by step, bring the incidents to mind bringing the person to mind. And in that quiet moment of sitting in memory, reflect on the negativity, That you felt that you caused and then apologize or make amends in your mind in your meditation.

21:39 It's a meditative exercise. If the people you recall in this exercise are still around, you can certainly engage with them and own and make amends in person. But, you know, maybe that isn't always wise or appropriate or practical, you will know the outcome of this meditation of owning and making amends for past hurts internally in your mind. And your heart is to scrub clean, that negative karmic dust that holds you back or hold you down your heart. And mind will be relieved and grow, lighter, you'll feel more open. So there will be a tendency to justify to explain to highlight circumstances. All the reason I did this is because the debtor data and maybe ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, even if this is a meditative exercise, your mind will still your ego.

22:30 Will still jump in and go, oh, I didn't mean it. And it was because by this and that you'll have excuses. Our minds are gold medal, gymnast when it comes to avoiding responsibility. So the key is to own own it all of it without condition without exception without excuse. Then make amends for it. Feel regret for hurting or harming, feel regret for doing something that caused someone else sadness or disappointment. So okay, I said there were two basic methods. The other method is action taking literal action and this is so important and critical to the whole exercise. The first part is good but it it lacks oomph unless you add the second part X action is the reagent. The element that makes the whole practice light, you up, and purify your negativities, and your negative Karma and helps you move forward action.

23:43 Here it is, do good. things today right now, do concrete, kind things over and over again and again, And do them with intention. The intention of your kindness is to purify to make amends for the past. You are aware that you've caused pain hurt, or harm in the past, but you are now trying to purify it to turn it into positives, that will help you help others more. You're creating a force multiplier.

24:26 Do kind, generous helpful, sweet thoughtful. Things for others. And do them with the heart and mind of purifying of owning and making amends. Do it with your full intention and attention. It is a lot of work and it takes a lot of attention. But the net effect is one where you find your life brighter Fuller, and you yourself more optimistic and happier. more importantly, you will become a Kinder more generous person, step-by-step action after-action, kind word after kind were generous thought after generous thought Mistakes can become a burden if we let them sit and fester or they can trigger positive actions of body speech and mind since we're going to make them mistakes. And we're going to make mistakes, no matter how hard we try to be perfect.

25:45 Let's use our mistakes to purify, our negativities to wash our hearts and Minds clean and to move forward on our journey. Our journey, this wonderful path of uncovering the authentic self. Let's all do our best and go forward and create a world where there's an infinite supply of happiness and peace. Thank you. Take care. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast and want to hear more, please subscribe, and share. If you'd like to share your own experience. Thoughts or ask a question.

26:34 Please send an email to Mike at resonant dot social. With gratitude, theme music is courtesy of stock audios. Distributed by pixabay a resident. Life, is a podcast from the time is now Productions.