Creating Peace

Sitting on a plane a week or so ago, opposite a woman with a mean, pinched mouth, haranguing the guy she was with – she reminded me of one of my nasty school teachers at elementary school - I found myself getting irrationally irritated by her facial expression. I know we all get that from time to time – someone’s face pisses us off for no real reason other than unconscious association. However, knowing that sitting in judgement of another merely traps me in self-judgement, and that relinquishing judgement of another frees me up too, I instead trained my inner eye to spy the Buddha within her. It was hard as she really was evidently an obsessive, compulsive control-freak of the highest order, but then I tuned into the notion we’re all mirrors to each other and immediately noticed how my own mouth was held a bit pinched and realized what was irritating me about her was the aspect of myself I didn’t accept or forgive. Realizing this, I relaxed my mouth, my irritation with her diminished, the Buddha in her revealed itself and as it did her mouth relaxed too. Pure magic.

I wish you peace, ease, harmony and mutual compassion today.