The pothole that swallowed me

4.17

My annual Big Fall happened today. Turned my ankle, tried to get my legs back under me, but -- after a 20 foot drunken stumble -- I succumbed and splatted against the blacktop, smacking my hands and knees and face.  I am fine, no worries except for a pretty bad headache and the general aches one would expect from this kind of incident.  

After Karmi helped me up and we laughed, recounting the slow-motion cartwheeling of my body out of control, my first thought was, 'Damn it, these are my favorite pants! The ones that always fit and make my butt look cute.  That tar stain better come out.'

My second thought was a much more important a cogent one, thank god. For weeks in Buddhism class we have been asking our teacher about guilt.  It's hard to wrap Judeo-christian minds around a schema that does not have guilt. I have been swimming in guilt my whole life. I bathe in it. I freeze it for future use.  I paint it on my walls.  Swallow it whole including the seeds.  Every week, Palmo tries to explain how karma works and how guilt is NOT part of that process, and my brain could only muster flashes of knowing.  Today, I got it.  I understand.  

I fell.  Something bad happened, but I had no inclination to blame or berate myself.  I simply looked at the causes: the edge differential in the blacktop and my lack of attention. I noted them and I thought about corrective action: making sure that I glance down knowing my proclivity to fall. I did not attach guilt or self-anger to the event, for it would serve no purpose.  I simply noted the fruition of a harmful action and thought about how to prevent its reoccurrence. 

That is what Palmo has been trying to explain.  

We will do bad things.  I will eat too large a hunk of cheese in the near future probably -- and, sure I could wallow in self-hatred, but it would serve no helpful purpose.  I need to seek the root action, see the harmful fruition of that action, and try to think of ways to do things differently.  

I will hurt someone -- who knows who or when or why -- and, yes, I could feel guilty or I can reflect, choose and act differently.  

Guilt does not help the healing process -- as I have always thought it did --  it halts it.  Guilt slows the process of growth and compassion. 

I get it, I really do.  And for that I thank this little pothole.  What is a little scrape on my knee compared to a whole new way of thinking?