FIVE METHODS TO CULTIVATE FORBEARANCE: REFLECTIVE FORBEARANCE
Master Jun Hong Lu: The fourth type of forbearance is “Reflective Forbearance”. What do you do when others dishonour you or pick a fight with you? You need to elevate your state-of-mind, which is to reflect on the wisdom of emptiness.
You imagine the light of the Buddha shining all over you and understand that fundamentally, all dharmas are devoid of self. In other words, you understand that you are a Buddhist practitioner, and you have no ego. In this case, who is he scolding?
Did this happen in your company in the past? Without naming anyone in specific, someone is hurling criticism, and as it drags on, many people will start to get agitated but there will be a group of people, who seem to be completely unperturbed by the goings-on. Why is it so? This is because they are devoid of the notion of self and to them, they are not the object of the reprimand. In the absence of the notion of self, how is it possible for you to feel insulted?
If you are devoid of the perception of self, you will stay patient. You will not regard yourself too highly. When a quarrel breaks out, you will view it as the interplay of the five desires and the corresponding six sense objects and everything is empty in itself. Even when you become the object of criticism, you will not feel anything whatsoever. To you, there is no notion of self now that you are cultivating your mind. Under such a scenario, the insult that others hurl at you will not hold any ground.
Simply put, assuming today, you shine a searchlight into the sky, do you think the light is able to reach the depths of the sky? That’s not possible because all that your searchlight can reach is where the clouds are, which is not the sky. It may be a great height but that is not where the depths of the sky are. Similarly, if your mind is empty, how is it possible for you to feel insulted?
To learn not to be upset, one can apply the method of reflection on emptiness, as a way to quell the hatred.
Source: Master Jun Hong Lu’s Buddhism In Plain Terms, Volume 11 Chapter 44
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