aparigraha & vairagya

A friend unwittingly humiliated me publicly. Not completely publicly. In an email. We were doing a round robin discussion about a topic and my friend made an off-hand comment about a project I'm responsible. "It needs help," she said. 


Burn. 


My boss has, on a couple of occasions, spoken rudely to me or upbraided an action of mine, in front of others.


Burn.


It takes a long time to get over these things. For me it does. I imagine it does for everyone. But I have to speak from my own experience. That's what this blog is about. My own experience. When this thing happened with my friend a couple of hours ago, my first reaction (and second and third) was to say to myself, "Fine. I'm done." I shared the email with my husband, who wisely replied:
"Yes, that was rather insensitive. But you know [her], so you know she did not intend to embarrass you in front of [that other person]. Please don't let this grow into bitterness. Remember the concept of giving someone credit for benevolence, and let it go."


My husband has very little to no knowledge about the 8 Limb Path. Yet he spoke so well to Vairagya. 


Detachment.


"Detachment is rarely something we achieve once and for all. It's a moment-by-moment, day-by-day process of accepting reality as it presents itself, doing our best to align our actions with what we think is right, and surrendering the outcome," Sally Kempton says so well in this Wisdom article in Yoga Journal.


Now, as I write this, I find myself pleased that I let this small slight go so quickly. It only took 120 minutes (give or take) to detach from the comment and the anger. To stop hoarding (Aparigraha) the feelings. Now that I'm not ruminating about this, I can go on and enjoy the rest of my evening!