The second underwater siren is with another squadron of Namuci,
namely obstinate malice. It's an intention to do ill-will. But please remember
that intention includes thoughts, speech and action. It's not just
what we do against someone; malicious thoughts and speech throw
us into the ditch as well. It often comes in the name of "self-protection" followed
with a declaration, "I have my rights!"
When we find ourselves in the ditch, soaked in our own crestfallen wishes
and sinking in the frozen waters of hate or burning up in the boiling mud, we
need help. In this situation it is easy for us to tumble deeply into despair and depression.
This ditch sometimes leads to giving up. It may sound stupid, but it often happens.
Remaining in hell's ditch is somehow thought of as preferable to facing
our pride and anger.
It helps to remember or are reminded that we need help. We are in hell.
But this hell doesn't mean that we are forsaken, it means we need to tend to this condition
in order to find our way out of the ditch.
Recognition of the conditions along with remorse and renunciation are generally
the first aide to those in hell. Some of us are obstinate to the point we are unwilling to recognize that
we are indeed in hell! We'd rather die than admit defeat. We have fallen victim to our own
propaganda.
Suffering in hell is often our ally. We may just reach a place where we can't go on any
longer as a hell-being and opt out of hell and face the storms that accompany releasing our pride and anger.
We may need to pray and beg for this recognition.
It is difficult to recover our footing because the sidetracking condition of pride
tends to want to drown us. The best and perhaps only way is to admit defeat without shame.
The conditioned self, the self laden with pride and malice cannot make the climb. The ego, however fights
to hold onto whatever talent or gift it has to sneak through, only to be thrown back into hell time and time again.
Malice comes in various sizes and shapes.
In any one of a number of disguises, revenge, vindictiveness, triumphant control and
rage just to name some common ones. Each disguise comes with a companion, obstinacy.
This companion also has many disguises from being mulish and stubborn to
intense persistence against a person, place or thing we do not like. Malice,
stubborn malice can develop into a rigid, fixed inflexibility.
Frozen malice or raging, hot malice comes from the self wanting something
and not getting it. It's quite a double dose of painful experiences; first we don't
get whatever it is we want and we make that pain worse with the suffering of
anger. It's as if we pour gasoline into our disturbed mind and light it with a
blow torch.
Every ambition for something to go your way can lead you to a hellish ditch. Renunciation of ambition
for things to go your way keeps you out of the ditch. Fingering, wriggling, playing, finagling and debating are not factors of renunciation.
Renunciation means letting go of all ideas and hopes that the mind would like to grasp and retain, be interested in and wants to investigate. Ayya Khema
