Meditation

I need to begin my meditation practice again.

My monkey mind is running amok. (my mom liked that word.. amok… amok amok amok)

I really like listening to Dan Harris who wrote the book 10% Happier and recently tuned into his Substack live feed with Vinny Ferraro. A listener asked how can we have compassion for evil do-ers?

Vinny says he doesn’t believe in evil. He’s been working in prisons for decades but has yet to see evil. People do a lot of unskillful things and desperate things. He says every time he’s done harm it’s been out of his own pain and his own confusion. And he imagines everyone is doing their best.

He admits that can be really hard to believe. He follows up asking are the parts of himself that have done harm, are they forgivable?

A large part of forgiveness is to separate the actor from the action. Can we look at the actor and say alright, this is a confused person that has built their pain up? Can we have compassion for the people involved? Can I find the desperate parts of myself?

May these people and our own parts remember their goodness. Remember their belonging.

If we know we belong to each other it’s really hard to do harm.

This is something I’m ruminating about this weekend in relation to things being juggled around in my monkey mind.

And yeah, I really need to start meditating again.