“Feelings, whether of compassion or irritation, should be welcomed, recognized, and treated on an absolutely equal basis; because both are ourselves. The tangerine I am eating is me. The mustard greens I am planting are me. I plant with all my heart and mind. I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath.
Nothing should be treated more carefully than anything else. In mindfulness, compassion, irritation,
mustard green and teapot are all sacred.”
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926- )
There is a great truth that is spoken in this quote. We all have an ugly side, and although we often choose to disown and hide it, it is indeed a part of us. We all have feelings that are angry or mean or evil or unkind, and secretly we acknowledge it. It is the dirty laundry of our mind, and like laundry, if we choose to bury and hide it, the pile only accumulates more as time goes on. We have to wash our dirty laundry by acknowledging it and confronting it instead of letting the smell grow. These thoughts are also like laundry because everyone has them. We are all equally guilty of fostering thoughts of an undesirable nature at some point or another. We should not be ashamed for having fostered such thoughts. What we should be ashamed of is our denial of such thoughts. We should be ashamed if instead of confronting these thoughts we flee from them, as if somehow if we run fast enough we can escape the darkness in them, when that darkness is part of us. We needn’t fear the dark side of ourselves, for darkness is only the absence of light. It is important for us to illuminate these thoughts with equal light as we do our loving and kind thoughts, for each is an integral part of us. Without dark there is no light, no hot without cold, no good without evil, no left without right, and no high without low.
