Don't waste time hating those who hurt you! Ignore them and move on
It has happened to everyone sooner or later to feel irate for an offense received or to get angry, in general, about someone's behavior.
Sometimes, we have jumped on the culprit to respond in kind, riding on the waves of our wounded pride. But at other times, we have been held back by someone who whispered, "Forget it, just ignore it."
In the first case, we undoubtedly worsened the situation and we were still angry and upset; in the second, we acted in the best way - at least according to Buddhist philosophy.
Here is a very simple story, that shows us how our happiness sometimes depends on ignoring others.
Once a man approached Buddha and, without saying a word, spat in his face. His disciples got angry.
Ananda, the closest disciple, asked Buddha, "Give me permission to give this man what he deserves!"
Buddha wiped himself calmly and replied: "No. I will talk to him." And joining the palms of his hands in reverence, he said to the man: "Thank you. With your gesture, you have allowed me to see that anger has abandoned me. I am extremely grateful. Your gesture has also shown that Ananda and the other disciples can still be assailed by anger. Thank you! We are very grateful to you!"
The man couldn't believe his ears, and he was moved. In fact, that night, he was seized by a tremor all over his body and could not sleep. The Buddha had completely swept away all his way of living and acting.
The next day, the man returned to the Buddha and, after bowing down at his feet, he asked for forgiveness for his behavior. The master explained to him, however, that there was nothing for which to forgive him:
"As the flow of the Ganges makes its water never the same, so neither is a man the same as before. I am no longer the same person to whom you did something yesterday, and also the person who yesterday spat on me is not here. I don't see anyone here angry like him. Now you're not the same man as yesterday, you're not doing anything to me, so there's nothing I have to forgive you for. The two people, the man who spat and the man who received the spit, both are no longer here. So now let's talk about something else."
This story teaches us that the honest person who is in the right does not need to react to offenses because they are the fruit of those who have a distorted image of reality. Therefore, don't give it any importance, allowing it to alter your psychological and emotional balance. Everything is changeable and one must have the intelligence to understand it, and not to get angry about something that no longer exists in the present.
To this end, it may be useful to adopt the "radical acceptance" technique which was developed by the psychologist Marsha M. Linehan of the University of Washington, that implies leaving judgments aside. In fact, if someone offends us it is because we expect something quite different. Accepting what happened, without making value judgments gives us a psychological distance which protects us from a situation that could harm us emotionally.
A universal concept, that is, perhaps, more clearly understandable using the words of the Buddha. 🙏
