AS BILL SEES IT: 187,Talk or Action?* In making amends, it is seldom wise to approach an individual who still smarts from our injustice to him, and announce that we have gone religious. This might be called leading with the chin. Why lay ourselves open to being branded fanatics or religious bores? If we do this, we may kill a future opportunity to carry a beneficial message.
But the man who hears our amends is sure to be impressed with our sincere desire to set right a wrong. He is going to be more interested in a demonstration of good will than in talk of spiritual discoveries.
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**Purify intent. Purified intentions are not necessarily good ones in the sense that many a wrong has been done in the name of good intentions. A pure approach in making amends has no attachment to messages good or bad. Such action requires an examination of motives and a reliance on good sense.
When good sense fails, or I can find no access to it, I sit. If I confuse sitting with reticence sitting seems a vanity, a luxury I can’t afford, but is it better to take an action… even a harmful action… than to pause? If I have a living relationship with a Power greater than myself, why don’t I believe I can find the guidance I need by listening to that source?
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Opening the door on voidness of identity,
clear awareness floods everywhere,
and though everywhere, nowhere is an identity found.
Drinking the Mountain Stream
The Songs of Milarepa
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