Refusing Gifts

Once the Buddha, who was awakening from his meditation, looked down and declared that he would bring blessings to those who brought him evil and do good to those who harmed him. A man from the village nearby, hearing this, came to him the next day, cursed at him, and struck him. The Buddha said nothing. The man cursed and struck again, demanding a response. Again the Buddha said nothing. A third time the man cursed and struck him, this time with a stick leaving a large black bruise across the Buddha's shoulder. The Buddha did not respond. As the man turned to leave the Buddha finally spoke to him "when one man gives another a gift, but the person will not take it, who does the gift belong to?" The man responded that it belonged to the giver. The Buddha returned, "Likewise do I refuse your gift." There are a few variations of this story but the gist of them and the endings are all essentially the same. It has remained one of my favorites since I first heard it more than ten years ago. It seems obvious enough what the message is but putting it into practice is the hard part. How many of us take everything personally? How often do we let the words of others affect how we behave? If we allow ourselves to be so easily affected than who is in control, others or ourselves? The truth is that we let others control us all the time. We all have rules that say if we are talked to in a certain way then we will be offended, angry, sad, etc. When a person is using harsh or discourteous language they are usually expecting to gain a specific result from the intended target. So what happens if they don't get what they are expecting? What if they don't get the anger or offense they intended to receive? The effect is that all the power is sapped out of their actions. The bomb didn't go off!! What the hell do we do now? When someone is trying to discourage you from a course of action, refuse their gift. When someone is trying to insult you, refuse their gift. When someone talks behind your back and you find out about it, refuse the gift. Don't take anything personally. When we take things personally we are giving power to those who would like to knock us down. We are feeding into their negative energy. We are also involved with a false identity of of ourselves. We believe that there is some permanent thing that has been hurt. We say I have been hurt. But what is this "I" that has been damaged? It is a false mind created mirage. It has no objective reality. That which we call "I" is nothing more than a series of constantly changing mental perceptions and formations derived from our physical senses.
We can also use others negativity to practice mindfully. It is the obstacles in our lives, the challenges that really allow us to transcend our false view of reality and connect with something deeper. These challenges allow us to take serious self-examination and see that there really is nothing that has been damaged or hurt. The only damage exists in the mind as the ego tries to reassert itself and its limited view of the world. It is the ego that makes us embarrassed, angry, sad etc. If you turn your attention fully to the present and drop the past and future then there can be nothing to be angry about. One thing I've found that helps to transform the negativity of others is to imagine myself as a sort of vaporous form that the negativity just passes through. You do this while the negativity is coming at you. Just imagine that you are not solid and the force of the negative energy just passes right through.