Upeksa
I've been thinking about anger and control and forgiveness since my yoga training last week. Not because the training brought up these emotions, but because we spent a lot of time talking about these topics and how they are viewed in yoga philosophy. And, because since I've been home, there's one particular approach, called upeksa, that keeps coming to mind as I talk with my staff or friends.
Upeksa (pronounced "oo-payk-sha") is a bhavanna, or attitude, toward someone who has done you harm. This harm can range from a person cutting you off on the expressway to full-fledged, all-out evil, such as the massacre of an entire civilization. And what upeksa offers is a disengagement from the anger that the harm creates in you. It isn't a milque toast, passive eschewing of responsibility or concern. Nor is it a free ticket for the mayhem to continue. What it is, is a choice: to observe and identify the selfishness, to experience whatever emotions or thoughts it creates, but choose at the same time not to hold onto that anger. That doesn't mean that you ignore it; but it does mean that you choose not to continue your own suffering by repeatedly reliving the experience.
Here's an example. We all have someone in our life who makes us absolutely crazy. And we all have patterns, or samskaras, that we repeat over and over with that person. Say your best friend always forgets to call you on your birthday, even though you never forget hers and in fact, send her a very expensive floral arrangement each year on the precise date of her birth. (This is not a true story.) You could feel a reasonable amount of irritation, and you could: A) keep it to yourself and be angry every time that you think of the money you've spent on her or B) tell her that you're hurt a bit that she never remembers your birthday, but each year when the time is rolling around, you can feel yourself anticipating the hope, then the disappointment, then the anger again as nothing arrives or C) talk to her, accept that she's probably never going to change, and choose either to continue remembering her birthday because it pleases you, or decide that you no longer want to mark the anniversary of her birth if she can't recall your day.
That last one is upeksa. You've spoken up, you've stated your case, and now are free of the cycle of hope and disappointment, by your own choice. That's what I love about upeksa: the idea that we all have a choice, no matter how dire the circumstances may seem. It doesn't erase the evil. But the possibility exists that by taking all of that energy focused on anger and resentment and fear and turning it to something more positive - communication or a campaign to change something or a vote to put a political apparatus in play - we might actually effect a real change.
As we were studying these bhavannas, I thought of some relatives in my family, now deceased. One brother stopped talking to another brother when they were in their forties, and for the next forty years neither spoke to the other. Family occasions, they would stand on opposite sides of the room, pretending the other didn't exist. And I'm not even sure that the survivor came to his brother's funeral. What did either gain by holding onto his animosity for years and years? Was he the winner or was he the loser? And did it make right whatever had caused the rift? Upeksa would have allowed them to find some kind of link. It makes me think of another idea that keeps coming to mind these days: E.M. Forster's line from Howard's End. "Only connect."
Upeksa (pronounced "oo-payk-sha") is a bhavanna, or attitude, toward someone who has done you harm. This harm can range from a person cutting you off on the expressway to full-fledged, all-out evil, such as the massacre of an entire civilization. And what upeksa offers is a disengagement from the anger that the harm creates in you. It isn't a milque toast, passive eschewing of responsibility or concern. Nor is it a free ticket for the mayhem to continue. What it is, is a choice: to observe and identify the selfishness, to experience whatever emotions or thoughts it creates, but choose at the same time not to hold onto that anger. That doesn't mean that you ignore it; but it does mean that you choose not to continue your own suffering by repeatedly reliving the experience.
Here's an example. We all have someone in our life who makes us absolutely crazy. And we all have patterns, or samskaras, that we repeat over and over with that person. Say your best friend always forgets to call you on your birthday, even though you never forget hers and in fact, send her a very expensive floral arrangement each year on the precise date of her birth. (This is not a true story.) You could feel a reasonable amount of irritation, and you could: A) keep it to yourself and be angry every time that you think of the money you've spent on her or B) tell her that you're hurt a bit that she never remembers your birthday, but each year when the time is rolling around, you can feel yourself anticipating the hope, then the disappointment, then the anger again as nothing arrives or C) talk to her, accept that she's probably never going to change, and choose either to continue remembering her birthday because it pleases you, or decide that you no longer want to mark the anniversary of her birth if she can't recall your day.
That last one is upeksa. You've spoken up, you've stated your case, and now are free of the cycle of hope and disappointment, by your own choice. That's what I love about upeksa: the idea that we all have a choice, no matter how dire the circumstances may seem. It doesn't erase the evil. But the possibility exists that by taking all of that energy focused on anger and resentment and fear and turning it to something more positive - communication or a campaign to change something or a vote to put a political apparatus in play - we might actually effect a real change.
As we were studying these bhavannas, I thought of some relatives in my family, now deceased. One brother stopped talking to another brother when they were in their forties, and for the next forty years neither spoke to the other. Family occasions, they would stand on opposite sides of the room, pretending the other didn't exist. And I'm not even sure that the survivor came to his brother's funeral. What did either gain by holding onto his animosity for years and years? Was he the winner or was he the loser? And did it make right whatever had caused the rift? Upeksa would have allowed them to find some kind of link. It makes me think of another idea that keeps coming to mind these days: E.M. Forster's line from Howard's End. "Only connect."
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