Positive Penance
With the relaxation of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, I can see the crowd again whenever I go out to do my grocery shopping. Furthermore, it'll be Chinese New Year next week and for the first time in 2 years, people are allowed to go back to their hometowns. I can see shops doing good business now. It is a relieve for many businesses to be able to enjoy the brisk sales of the festive season.
Most people have already gone on leave. I actually look forward to seeing KL streets being emptied again as always during the festive holidays. This year however I will be especially busy because I will be working over the first 3 days of the holidays.
The pandemic has changed my lifestyle a lot. I hardly go out anymore, except on weekends. Is this change for the better? I am not sure, but I find it interesting that I can adapt to this new routine. I even see it as a kind of penance, that is ultimately good for the soul.
Usually penance is a sort of self-punishment inflicted on oneself in order to repent for some sin committed. It is a way of consciously dealing with the karma of one's actions. You pay your debts now, in the form that you choose so that they do not surface unexpectedly in the future.
Penance and confession come hand-in-hand--something the Catholics know very well. I think it is a good practice, if not mired in superstitious beliefs. When you confess to some wrongdoing, you are allowing the karma to work itself out in its most efficient way in the external world, instead of allowing the guilt to create all sorts of psychological damage inside.
Penance is karma yoga in action. As long as it is not physically sadistic, it allows a person to suffer pain consciously and enables the effects of one's past actions end there and then. First you have to identify the action that needs resolution and then you have to clearly see what was the erroneous motivation that led to the action. You confess to it, so that its consequences can be unraveled openly. And then you proactively take its pain by taking penance.
Professional athletes subject themselves to strenuous regiments of training and exercise that are tailored to address weaknesses and build up strengths. Penance is the same too. Penance is a form of spiritual training. To associate it with sin and punishment is to bring an unhealthy element of religious superstition into it.
We can see every challenge in life as a form of penance. It is challenging to you simply because of certain inherent weaknesses in yourself. And by willingly taking it head-on, you will learn and thus addressing the source of its pain.
Penance taken to the extreme is asceticism, which is certainly not the Middle Way that the Buddha promoted. Sportsmen know that the wrong type of training can caused injuries. Similarly with asceticism. Let's see penance as something positive and therapeutic. Take the penance approach to every challenge that comes up in your life. And by doing so, every challenge becomes an opportunity to perfect yourself.
