Every retreat, Day 10, Rosemary gives the "Good luck/Bad luck" who knows? story. Sometimes what we call failures are things that we failed to do; sometimes they are things that simply failed no matter what we did because of some other person doing something, or natural elements and whatever else.
So, it's more the times when, say if I was swimming and I lost a race because I did a crummy time, because I really didn't do my best, because I hadn't prepared enough for that event. In that case, I might have kicked myself, which of course I did a few times. So those sort of situations in our past - now gone - what do we want to do with them today? We have Compassionate/Lovingkindness for that person who failed, the person who wasn't prepared, the person who didn't know better, the person who made mistakes.
Failure can have two aspects here: one, that we feel we didn't do well enough, and the other was simply that we failed and there was nothing more we could do. An example of a failure where there was nothing more I could do, would include something like, back in my swimming days, at college, if I swam against Mark Spitz (who was the world record holder at the time), and I failed to win, there was nothing much I could do. This guy was a super swimmer. In that sense I would not have felt that I was bad, I was terrible, I was a failure, in the sense of what I think this note is really talking about.
What is it I do every regular retreat in the very long Compassionate/Lovingkindness meditation? I take us through our life. I start with a 6-year-old: "Can you see that person as different to who you are today?" 10-year-old. 15-year-old. Last year. Yesterday. If we can see that the 6-year-old is simply someone who made a mistake, didn't know any better, then we can also see the 10-year-old, simply made mistakes, didn't know any better.
Those people were conditioned to be who they were, mostly from our friends, some from our parents, some from our teachers, but we were conditioned to be who we were. That 10-year-old's not who you are today. If we can do that when we were 6, and we can do that when we were 10, then we should be able to that when we were 15 also, right? That's still far enough back in the past. That's not too hard to look back at and say, "Yeah, that's not me, that was somebody young, immature, etc." It's when it gets to last year, it's a little harder to do, right? It's like, "But that was me." We kind of hold on to "that was me"; and then yesterday, "Well of course that was me! Who else was it? No one else was here, it was me!"
But no, it's just like the 6-year-old; it's like the 10-year-old; it's like the 15-year-old. The person yesterday - if they failed in any way, they didn't know any better. If they made a mistake, they were ignorant of some things. It's that simple, as to a fact. But it's so much more difficult to do because we're attached to that person as being "me", because I still look just like I did yesterday.
If I go back two days, then I can separate that from who I am today a little easier but, in reality, whoever walked into this hall has "gone" also. Now this is the fine level of Buddhist practice to actually get that deeper understanding that we are a changing entity, and until you're enlightened you're going to have failures, you're going to do something that's ignorant, you're going to make a mistake.
The "highest level" of a person, that I am aware of from the scriptures, who felt they were failing, was about a non-returner named, Anuruddha. Buddhism teaches there are four levels of enlightenment. The non-returner is the third level, very close to fully enlightened. Anuruddha was a cousin of the Buddha, he was very wise, he even developed the psychic ability to see back in time as far as the Buddha. He could match the Buddha in that psychic ability, but he wasn't happy about being third level enlightened. He felt that he had failed. He wasn't fully enlightened yet. Think about that, you are so purified that all sense desire has gone, all aversion has gone, there's only little bits of ego identity that's still there and this guy felt he was a failure! How do your failures match up to that one!
So, when we look in the past and we see that our thoughts about being a failure are taking us into self-doubt, insecurities, negative self-images, we have to let go of that wrong view. That was the self of 5 years ago, 10 years ago, that's not the self I am today.
We've talked about a battle here between Mara and our wisdom. "Mara", our ignorance on one side and who we call "ourselves" on the other. The good stuff, that's what you want to grab on to. That's your self-image today, not the Mara stuff.
The person who made a mistake yesterday/last week, who said something that wasn't right, did something that wasn't right. Can you see that was a part of Mara? That's not who you are today. Now we can see that, that wasn't so good. We have the Moral Shame come up. Then the Moral Dread steps in and says, "Okay, I have to be careful not to do that again."
What happens to our insecurities/self-doubt and negative self-image if we feel, "I'm not going to do that again"? If we have this strong determination, if we have a lot of Compassionate/Lovingkindness for ourselves, if we've learned some wisdom from that past event where we failed, if we actually feel strongly today that we're not going to do it again, do we have a negative self-image? No. Do we feel insecure? No. Do we have any self-doubt when we say, "I'm not doing that again"? No.
It's a "switch" in the mind to see that it's who we were in the past, just someone who made a mistake. Open the forgiveness, open the Compassionate/Lovingkindness for them, but then also using the Moral Dread, making a determination to learn from it and not do it again. Then we can overcome our failures.