..续本文上一页hat. So please, I”m asking you, explain to me so that I can understand." If a husband is proud, and doesn”t go to his wife and ask her to explain, he may be the victim of a wrong perception and that wrong perception will make him suffer all his life. The same is true of the wife. If the wife is suffering, if she is angry, and if she thinks that she is sure that her husband is the cause of her anger and her suffering, then she should also not allow her pride to stand between them. She should go to her husband and she should say, "My dear, I am suffering. I don”t understand why you said that. I don”t understand why you did that to me. Do I deserve to be treated like that
Please explain it to me." We should say this with all our sincerity, expressing the truth of our feelings, and then the other will see their responsibility, and explain to us that we have a wrong perception, or that in a moment of forgetfulness or affliction they have said this, and they will admit it and then say, "I will do my best never to do that again." Therefore, the suffering will be resolved, and the internal formation will come to an end.
In a relationship between two people, there will obviously be difficulties. We cannot avoid it. When the other makes an internal formation in us, we suffer, and we blame the other. But when we make the other suffer, we may not know that we have made the other suffer, or that we are making the other suffer. All we can see is the actions and the words of the other, which make us suffer, and we cannot see our own actions and words that make the other suffer. That is the truth—it”s always like that, we are all like that. When the other makes us suffer, we know it. We know that that action, those words made us suffer. Because we are clumsy, lacking mindfulness, we will have made the other suffer without knowing it. Therefore, the best way to act is to sit down together frequently, to have tea together, or just sit together, and ask the other, "These past days, have I, out of forgetfulness or clumsiness, done something to make you suffer
" This is important. This is what we call "Beginning Anew" in Plum Village. If possible, we should practice this every week. Even if nothing has happened, even if there is no friction in our family, we should still, at least once, sit down together, and when we are sitting together we can practice watering flowers, help each other to see clearly, and shine light on each other”s behavior. First of all, we practice watering the flower. Watering the flower means that we sit with the other, we recognize the positive things about the other person, and we mention them. If the other person is fresh, is patient, is tolerant, has talents and skills, we have to say, "I”m so happy when I see these qualities in you." That is called watering the flowers. Watering the flowers is like giving a present, bringing happiness to the person you love very quickly. The person you love is a flower. That flower can give us freshness, and happiness, and when we have a flower, we have to look after it, water it. Whatever positive qualities this person has, we should recognize them and mention them.
Once in the Lower Hamlet, we had organized the Buddha”s Birthday, and there was a husband and wife who had come from Bordeaux to be present at the ceremony, and I remember that I talked about watering the flowers during that ceremony. During the teaching, I saw the wife listening to me and crying. I thought she was suffering, and after the teaching I went to her husband, and I said, "Maybe you haven”t remembered to water your flower recently." I just said that, and he woke up when he heard it. After the afternoon meal they left for Bordeaux, and while he was driving he watered the flower of his wife. It only takes an hour …
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