Expert: Bodhicitta - 4/3/2006

Question
first of all, thank you for putting a little of your time aside to answer my question.

I dwell a lot about what might have happened if I had not made certain choices or if others, such as my parents, had not made certain choices for me.

could you provide for me specific meditations or rituals or even deities that can help me not to dwell on what might have happened. a particular regret prompted this question. though I have others, this one occupies my thoughts to the exclusion of almost all else.

thank you.  

Answer
hi ria
thanks for your question.

the first thing to do if you haven't already done so is to learn a basic buddhist meditation from a good teacher. This is  a necessary preliminary to any specific special meditation. As well as being a preliminary it is a life
times practice!

A basic meditation will include instructions which will
open you out to your mind. Thoughts arise you acknowledge them and let them go without attachment. As well as being
a necessary preliminary this also will work directly
with "regret".

It is difficult to say what sort of
time you should work with this basic meditation before getting into other meditations - for that you need a teacher to   guide you and tell you . But let us say you do this for a year or two or three. People tend to want instant results
but actually meditation is a life times practice so you
shouldnt worry about the odd year or three its all part of it.

In terms of a more direct way of working with "regret".
There are a number of meditations that do this within the
Buddhist traditions. Yes there are rituals and diety
practices but for this again you would need a teacher.

Perhaps one of the more interesting and direct ways of working with regret
directly is to really work with "time". You think that
there are these heavy events in the past that you regret
and you can't change them. You are stuck with them and you
feel tremendous guilt. But actually maybe time itself
is a rather suspicious notion. perhaps you could use meditation to ut directly through time itself and work with events
that are supposedly in the past as if they are here right now before you . Again I am not going to be very helpful and give you any instructions for that
you would need a teacher to do this.  However I think
it is interesting to tell people that such things are possible.

Western psychology works with the past by accepting it and finding out about it. Buddhist meditation
looks at the nature of time and can transform past as if it
were lead in an alchemical crucible and transform it into
gold.

I offer you hope and my best wishes for your path
Bodhicitta