My Mother is Blessed

I am in Sicily.  I came here for: I didn't know why. I am in a town called Palermo in a hostel I chose simply for the reason it has a yoga room. I did my yoga, following the same sequence I follow for a class - I realize why we do class that way - because I like it, it is a nice way to do yoga. After savasana I began my meditation sitting on a cushion, as one does. Myself posed me a conundrum.

"I have my own wonderful yoga room on the other side of the world so why do I find myself all this way, as far away as I can possibly find, in a yoga room. I think to myself I must have a large problem that I need to see from a different perspective,  a problem I needed to remove myself from, to get as far away from as is possible to so as to be able to see it more clearly, from a distance. Some people on the way have given me a fresh view.

The problem is my mother and why she would wish to hurt me as deeply as possible and then not even be able to admit to herself that she did anything wrong. I knew that she would blame me for reacting to her betrayal by accusing me of being responsible for reacting. And I was right. She believes that her betrayal of me never happened, that she did nothing wrong in inviting my x husband to spend a lovely christmas day with my family and completely denying me.

Ok so I got over this and rang her to hear that I have something wrong with me by being offended.

Well.

So I decided I must try to understand this from her point of view. All I can see is that she she thinks all that matters is that she had a lovely day for Christmas. The consequence of loising me - her daughter, is of no consequence because she had a lovely day. I see that in her complete self-centerdness she is unable to perceive my feelings.

I found that by coming to the realization that my mother blames me for everything I freed myself from accepting her guilt.

There is a powerful buddhist saying to take the blame unto oneself and give the victory to others. I believe that deciding to take the blame is different to accepting the blame imposed on me by her and I refused to accept taking her blame anymore. Some insightful people in Italy have been able to point out to me what my mother blames me for, because I was unable to fathom it myself. She blames me because she lives in an unhappy marriage and chose to stay in that state. She sees my x husband as the perfect husband. I see that I chose my husband because he is just like my mother because control and blame were all that I was used to in my life and he kept me in my comfort zone.

Fast forward... discover myself, find happiness, divorce controlling husband and give up everything I loved to be true to myself.

My mother never did this, she chose to stay in her unhappiness, of couse pretending that by doing so, she is content. Whilst I shed my unhappy situation and chose true happiness.

So I followed the buddhist dharma. Identify the suffering - my suffering is that my mother wishes to cause me harm. It is difficult because we are also supposed to treat all beings as if they are your mother. So I found compassion for my mother and I accepted that she blames me. I will not accrpt that I am at fault - because I am not, I have done nothing wrong in finding my own true happiness in my true nature. I do however accept that she blames me for this.

Then I gave her the victory. And what a wonderful victory I gave her. I gave her the victory of giving birth to me. Because what a wonderful achievement that is, to be my mother. Because I am the most forgiving, happy, joyful person I can be. I am the one who never gives up, who is never beaten, who achieves the impossible because nothing is impossible.

One time ago I realized that I must love my mother because she is is my mother now I realize that I can love my mother because she gave birth to me. She should be so grateful that she achieved such a fine birth, she was truely blessed the day she gave birth to me. I have achieved the impossible once again by forgiving the unforgivable.

Now I have no problem.