To let it be. My friend told me his word of the month was "let". Now, I'm hooked on to it. Let suffering be suffering, to let pain be pain, to let grasping be grasping. In doing so, I'm simply labeling them for what they are without judgment, I find. While it is challenging, I also notice that it increases my awareness of what things are.
Today, I noticed how much suffering was there around me. Sometimes I'm so focussed on my own suffering that I miss those of others around me. Today was a day when the reverse happened. I noticed the joy, the pain, the confusion and the sadness in people around me. I was touched by the state of two people in particular.
One is a colleague. I noticed in his eyes a lot of sadness, over what I do not know. I inquired about how he was doing. Not knowing if should push it any further, and how I should do it, I didn't push any further. I simply did some tong len for him.
The second is a neighborhood friend I practiced meditation with today; the same one I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Despite the fact that he is in a lot of pain and suffering, he has an amazingly positive attitude. Hanging out with him gave a lot of confidence in myself fro some reason. Also, it made me feel so much more blessed and damn lucky; for my health is a luxury compared to his.
I was at the Dalai Lama's talk recently. He talked about biased and unbiased compassion; the former based on actions and the latter based on the person. I thought it was a pretty good way of expressing it. The compassion I had expressed today might be partially biased. But there is the slightest possibility that they were unbiased. That makes me feel better. I've been trying to be more patient and compassionate recently. Perhaps my efforts are in the right direction. It feels fulfilling when I just do something out of compassion, without expecting anything in return. But, I'm worried about letting myself be abused by my own new found enthusiasm for compassion. I'm known to do that.... I should keep an eye on to catch these patterns early before they excalate into something bigger.
2 comments:
It must have been amazing to have been at the Dali Lama talk. I heard a DVD of him where he said that the goal of compassion is to drive you to do something to help the other person, not to make yourself suffer. Something to think about.
Good for you for keeping up with your meditation - getting to the point of seeing the joy instead of the suffering is a great point. Your post was a good reminder to me to meditate more.
It certainly interesting to go to the Dalai Lama's talk.
It is hard to find compassion without attachment. I might start of with genuine compassion, but soon enough it turns into attachment. Given my own over-protective nature (of others and not myself), it becomes real tricky. I start expecting things in return, even if it is just information that they are fine.
Post a Comment