Evoking the power of compassion in us is not always easy. I find myself that the simplest ways are the best and the most direct. Every day, life gives us innumerable chances to open our hearts, if we can only take them. An old woman passes you with a sad and lonely face and two heavy plastic bags full of shopping she can hardly carry. Switch on a television, and there on the news is a mother in Beirut kneeling above the body of her murdered son, or an old grandmother in Moscow pointing to the thin soup that is her only food. . . .
Any one of these sights could open the eyes of your heart to the fact of vast suffering in the world. Let it. Don�t waste the love and grief it arouses. In the moment you feel compassion welling up in you, don�t brush it aside, don�t shrug it off and try quickly to return to �normal,� don�t be afraid of your feeling or be embarrassed by it, and don�t allow yourself to be distracted from it. Be vulnerable: Use that quick, bright uprush of compassion�focus on it, go deep into your heart and meditate on it, develop it, enhance and deepen it. By doing this you will realize how blind you have been to suffering.
All beings, everywhere, suffer; let your heart go out to them all in spontaneous and immeasurable compassion.
– Sogyal Rinpoche
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Coach’s Note; yesterday i applied this Teaching from Rinpoche in my ongoing quest to dwindle my Judgments. I watched for ten minutes Ed Bradley interview Howard Stern. There are many things about Howard Stern’s conscious Song that he chooses to Sing into the UniVerse that i find myself really having to breathe through, as i battle away each day at attempting to Protect and Serve the Dharma in this day and age.
Within those ten minutes however, i felt compassion and understanding arise. This surge of Compassion and Understanding was particularly potent when i saw Howard’s eyes drop their Adultness as he revealed that as a boy his father’s constant line to him was something like, “You don’t know anything…you are a moron.” I too, was raised as one of those children that were, “To be seen and not heard.” Well, now lots of people hear Howard Stern. My compassion for the lack of Dharma Teacher in his life to teach him how to play Judo with that chronic negativity in his upbringing made those ten minutes of TV watching worthwhile.
Oh,
and so was watching Darren Ralves and Bode Miller go one-two in the BIRDS OF PREY World Cup Downhill! Yeah baby!!!
I bow to the Nature and Velocity and High Level of Dharma that you Sing To The UniVerse in that which you consciously choose to do today…
May Your Practice be strong and your Song stunningly helpful to all Beings you contact today…
namaste,
coach ilg
* opening photo of Charlie, one of the WF Temple H(om)e Cat Beings
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