I was brought up a Christian - and not just any kind of Christian, a born-again evangelical Christian, no stranger to tambourines, proselytising or speaking in tongues. My parents were even missionaries for a while. I rebelled against this as soon as I was old enough to discover feminism and science, but churches and Christianity still inform much of my spiritual and cultural experiences. Good Friday was always a key day in the Christian calendar for us, a day where we remembered the crucifixion and death of Jesus,. Having a coffee with a friend, she mentioned her German partner did not understand why in English we refer to the day when Christ was crucified as 'Good' Friday. And he has a point. It wasn't, presumably, a very good day for Jesus. Wouldn't it make more sense to call it 'Torture And Painful Death Friday'?
How could we look at this day, so significant in the Christian calendar, mindfully? Mindfulness has its roots not in Christianity but in Buddhism, a very different tradition. In mindfulness, after all, we try to observe our own feelings and experiences without judgement, without labelling them as 'good' or 'bad'. So, whilst dying a painful death at the hands of Romans isn't 'good' for the person dying, it represents a huge personal sacrifice for the greater good. Christ died, Christians are taught, to save us all from our sins. We learn repeatedly as we train in mindfulness that its benefits are not just to ourselves. By learning to calm our frazzled minds, and demonstrating the possibilities and strength of compassion, we create calmness and loving kindness around us. Whilst taking time to focus on ourselves sometimes feels like a selfish act, particularly to those of us used to caring for others, it is not really. We can only care for others if we take care of ourselves. So how do we interpret the sacrifice made on the cross? As Jesus died for our sins, he was not really exercising self care. But he was thinking beyond himself. Sir Robert Winston once said that the reason early man survived was the growth of religious belief: it gave us reason to look beyond ourselves and our own corporeal reality and limitations, to believe in things bigger than ourselves and to take risks that might result in our deaths knowing that there was something beyond us worth dying for. People sacrifice their lives in wartime for their countries, for their beliefs, to protect their families and loved ones all the time. Hopefully, few of us will be called upon to sacrifice their lives to found a world religion - there are already enough of those. But whilst mindfulness encourages us to live in the moment and our personal experience, it also helps us see our own feelings as fleeting and not all encompassing. All the major world religions can be summarised in a set of teachings that basically boils down to: be nice to other people, live well together, and don't be a dick. Only by embracing these central tenets of what it is to be human, and by going beyond our own interests and experiences, can we truly appreciate the meaning of the 'Good' Friday, and we don't need to be a Christian to do it. Behaving in the interest of the greater good starts with behaving in the interest of our own good - our own mental health and connection to others. So take a moment today to be good to yourself, to live in and experience the moment, to allow the busy thoughts and emotions that drive you to rest: and in doing so you can find the resources and strength to be good to others.
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AuthorI came to mindfulness through trying to find a way to be sane and compassionate in an insane and harsh world. Archives
October 2017
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