The following is from a session with Aaron on Nov. 4th, 2008.
You can read more of this and other transcripts at the Deep Spring website:
http://www.deepspring.org/
---
"I had an experience in a very long ago lifetime, when I was young in spirit. A younger and smaller boy in my village and I got into a fight. He had said rude things about my mother. I suppose this is a reason why young boys often fight. My father had died when I was young so my mother did manly labor, as it might be called, as well as taking care of the children and preparing food. She worked very hard to take care of our family. My father’s brothers helped her, but still she had to be strong and powerful, not soft and feminine as were many of the women in the village. So the boy had said, “She’s strong like a man,” and instead of taking that as a compliment, I took it as an insult and began to fight with him. I did not restrain myself, as would have been wise, so we got into a tussle and I was bigger. I pushed him and he fell in such a way that he broke his arm.
"Our village elders were very wise. They did not punish but tried to use our life situations for teaching. So after the immediate first aide was given, a splint was on the arm and a few days had passed so it was not so painful, they called us both. These elders first talked about what had happened, and then they said that what they felt would be an appropriate use of this situation—not punishment, an appropriate use of this situation—was that since the smaller boy could temporarily not help his mother and father by going out and doing farm work and heavy work, that for those 6 to 10 weeks until the arm was healed, I would go everyday to his home and do the heavy work that he always did. And he in turn would come to my house and help my mother every day. He would do everything that one could do with one arm. He would help her to tend the children, to stir the cooking pots, to carry a bucket of water, to keep the fire burning, to go out and pick berries and nuts and other kinds of food.
"So each of us spent the next 2 months doing this work, and of course we both gained deep insight into each other’s lives. I saw the reason for his statement about my mother; it was really not meant as an insult. Rather, it was a statement of his own concern because his mother was rather weak, frail, and dependent, and needed her children to take care of many things. I saw how that was for him. And he saw how it was for my mother, who had so much responsibility with a number of young children. I was the oldest. So he began to cherish her strength.
"When this time was over, we became best friends and throughout that life we were really closer than brothers, caring for each other. Both of us were far less prone to judgment, to the judging mind’s arising and to acting out the judging mind when it arose."
---
You can read more of this and other transcripts at the Deep Spring website:
http://www.deepspring.org/
No comments:
Post a Comment