"The healing is in the Return"

The subject line of a recent email from The On Being Project, “The healing is in the return,” caught my eye, coming as it did just as the month of Elul was about to begin. In the Jewish calendar, Elul is the month leading up to the holy days of Rosh Hashanah, the new year, and Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. It is a month of practicing teshuva, or return.

The email itself contained a “radical lesson” from Sharon Salzberg, who has been teaching Buddhist meditation for 50 years: “Start; and start again.”   Losing our way, like losing the focus on one’s breath in meditation, is not failure. “The healing is in the return,” says Salzberg, “...not in not getting lost in the beginning.” According to Salzberg, “we are returning creatures.”

On Yom Kippur, the congregation recites a long list of sins we have committed. And every year we come back to recite the list again. We are imperfect human beings. During Elul, we examine our sins and prepare to ask those against whom we have sinned for forgiveness, starting with ourselves.

Over the past year I have struggled to control my impatience. To address the harm I have done others by expressing my impatience, usually with an eye-roll or an unkind criticism, I must do two things. First, ask family and friends for forgiveness. Second, make different choices in the future so I do not repeat my behavior.

My goal is to move further along the continuum of patience between unquestioning acceptance and angry outbursts. Neither extreme is beneficial to me or others. I never want to accept injustice, but nor should I let anger come between me and the people I care about, knowing full well that an outburst creates, rather than solves problems. When I forget this, I will start again.