Dear Friends,
We now move into the next chapter of Christina Feldman’s Boundless Heart. The focus is on the heart quality of compassion.
At the heart of compassion is the invitation to turn toward suffering. Just as the longing for love, safety, and respect is a universal longing and story, so too is pain a universal and inescapable story.
page 57
That’s a deceptively simple statement, but it’s a useful truth to remember – a helpful counterbalance to the messages we often get in society that life would be better if only… we got the new car, promotion, perfect diet, etc.
A little later on that same page Christina adds:
This awareness is not meant to depress us or deny the many moments of joy, happiness, and delight that are part of our lives. It is meant to sober us and encourage us to reflect upon what truly matters in this one precious life we have to live.
page 57
Catherine McGee recently led a guided compassion meditation, which you can listen to here:
https://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/41/talk/54046/
In the preamble before the meditation, Catherine reminds us that in the practice, it’s okay if we don’t feel compassion; we’re setting the intention.
Christina echos a simlar idea: “We do not step foot on our path of inquiry and cultivation with a compassion that is immeasurable, but with the seeds of compassion in our hearts that ask to be cultivated, tended, and brought to fruition.” (page 59)
It’s my hope that looking at this topic over these next few days will inspire us to tend to our seeds of compassion. May they flourish and grow!
Warm wishes,
Andrea