On Kindness and Conditioning

It is possible that with the awareness that you have been unkind toward someone, you might realize, in a gentle sort of way,

'I don't want to do that. It doesn't feel very good.'

And it's not that you're a bad person, or even that you shouldn't be that way; it's just that you don't want to be unkind because it hurts your heart.

When you are open to that awareness, you won't need to try to be different, for in that gentle approach, you will already have changed.

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When we sit still in meditation, we don't scratch if we have an itch.  Now, this drives people crazy. I've had people say, 'This is demented. How could not scratching when you itch have something to do with spiritual practice?' It has everything to do with spiritual practice because it's that "It itches, I must scratch" response that is at the root of most of our suffering.

But you can just notice that it itches (ah, itching) and not have to do anything about it. You can realize that you are having a conditioned response to a sensation. You don't have to take it personally. You don't have to respond to it.

If you once learn that you don't have to respond that way, you're free of it. You prove to yourself that you won't die and you won't go crazy and parts of your body won't fall off. You can just be there and be perfectly fine. Then something hurts and you can sit through that. It just becomes interesting. You're not resisting it any more. It's just kind of fascinating how it hurts there and pretty soon it hurts here and then it doesn't hurt at all.

And then you think, "You know, my leg was hurting." You're sitting there quietly, breathing in, breathing out, and this helpful little voice says, "Wasn't your leg hurting a little while ago?" Suddenly you're in pain again. So we learn to sit still with that. Or, maybe you're obsessing about something. The voice says, "You know, I can't sit here. I can't stand this. I've got to get up and..." And you just sit there. You don't respond to it.

Maybe you become interested in obsession itself. (What is obsession? How do I do that?) Pretty soon you lose interest in that. You become bored with it because it's not making you do anything. Then, maybe you turn your attention to boredom...and you just sit there.

Eventually, it all begins to quiet down.

In the same way, when something happens in life, you no longer believe that you have to respond to it. You've sat still through so many "emergencies," so many "life and death issues," you no longer believe them. In not responding, the very energy, the force, the karmic conditioned force that is behind them, begins to have to feed on itself. It's no longer feeding on you because you're no longer participating in it. It has no fuel. And, eventually, it simply burns itself up. It simply burns itself away.

Cheri Huber
There Is Nothing Wrong With You
1993, Keep it Simple Books