Lessons from a Meditation Retreat

My sister went on a meditation retreat with my mom (seems all the women in my family, by pure coincidence, are meditating these days) and is a new person. Here's some things she told me she learned that I thought were very interesting and helpful:

-- she's recently having problems with a friend of her's (jealousy, judging them, etc) and the "head monk" told her that we are here to support our friends. And that's it! We are not here to judge them. We are here to be the best friend to them that we can be.

-- we all have the opportunity to start each day with a "clean slate." That means NOT holding grudges, not beating ourselves up over something in the past. We can start over each day - and let go.

-- because we are able to have a clean slate each day, people who have hurt us in the past deserve a clean slate too! Letting go and freeing ourselves of people who have hurt us in the past actually frees us - in the end we end up getting just as much out of this as the person we forgive. We arent walking around with the burden of harboring ill feelings toward the person who hurt us. We are free.

-- when someone criticizes you or hurts you with words - words are just sounds. When this happens, acknowledge that they are just sounds, and then let them go. Or when you have negative thoughts - your thoughts are just things. They are not you. Acknowledge that your thought is just a "thing," and then let it go.