Dear Friends,
Over the past two weeks, we’ve built up our muscle of mindfulness, and in the process, we have turned to see the way things are. Things change. We are interconnected. We are not helpless victims, but we are also not fully in control. And we have these beautiful hearts than can hold all this. So let’s strengthen that kindness muscle as we respond to the difficulties in life with compassion.
Christina Feldman describes two-fold approach this in her book Boundless Heart: The Buddha’s Path of Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity.
Mindfulness inclines toward, turns toward, our present moment experience, reversing the pattern of aversion; the world is illuminated through mindfulness, free of judgment and preference. Metta [kindness] is learning to stand near to all moments, people, and experiences, befriending all that has been illuminated. Metta is a process of sensitizing ourselves to the world we live in with all its joy and sorrow. Compassion is concerned with our response to the sorrow and pain illuminated through mindfulness and befriended with metta.
Lion’s Roar recently published an article by Christina on compassion, where she reminds us:
Again and again we are asked to learn one of life’s clearest lessons: that to run from suffering—to harden our hearts, to turn away from pain—is to deny life and to live in fear. So, as difficult as it is to open our hearts toward suffering, doing so is the most direct path to transformation and liberation.
Sharon Salzberg describes compassion as a trembling or quivery of the heart in response to another being’s pain. It’s a movement towards, to see if we can be of help, rather than a movement into, where we can easily get overwhelmed.
As part of last year’s Real Happiness Meditation Challenge, Sharon shared a post on compassion, which includes a link to a short meditation on compassion. You can access that here:
https://www.sharonsalzberg.com/topic/day-27-meditation-compassion/
May our steps along the path of compassion lessen the sorrow in this world.
With best wishes,
Andrea
I never suffered from insomnia before this year. Now I tend to wake at exactly 0345 every morning. My initial response was aggravation and the futile striving to try to fall asleep again… which is…. well… futile.
Now I have discovered Dharma Seed and I listen to a talk on my smart phone in the dark. ( We really must start recording Jeanne…. I miss half her talks due to my schedule…. and most of her talks I would listen to over and over ) Within half an hour I am back to sleep and have absorbed some amazing teaching ( that goes on after i have drifted off curled under the warm blankets with my cat Botticelli)
Listened to Joseph Goldstein last night (similar to but very different from Jack Kornfield) He was talking about loving-kindness. He said…. love in our culture is a word with so many meanings as to be almost meaningless. But kindness is practical….. based on common sense and demonstrable in a clear immediate sense. That is how I am going to look on metta practice… more focus on the kindness aspect.
RND