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Nonduality Highlights: Issue #3779, Sunday, January 17, 2010, Editor: Mark
Acting with compassion is not doing good because we think we
ought to. It is being drawn to action by heart-felt passion. It
is giving ourselves into what we are doing, being present in the
moment - no matter how difficult, sad or even boring it feels, no
matter how much it demands. It is acting from our deepest
understanding of what life is, listening intently for the
skillful means in each situation, and not compromising the truth.
It is working with others in a selfless way, in a spirit of
mutual respect.
- Ram Dass, from Compassion in Action, posted to The_Now2
If you have illusions about heaven
lose them.
The soul heard of one attribute of Love
and came to earth.
A hundred attributes of heaven
could never charm her back.
It is here the soul discovers
the reality of Love.
-Rumi, translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi. from Whispers
of the Beloved, posted to Sunlight
The Practice of Tonglen
Each of us has a "soft spot": the place in our
experience where we feel vulnerable and tender. This soft spot is
inherent in appreciation and love, and it is equally inherent in
pain.
Often, when we feel that soft spot, it's quickly followed by a
feeling of fear and an involuntary, habitual tendency to close
down. This is the tendency of all living things: to avoid pain
and cling to pleasure. In practice, however, covering up the soft
spot means shutting down against out life experience. Then we
tend to narrow down into a solid feeling of self against other.
One very powerful and effective way to work with tendency to push
away pain and hold onto pleasure is the practice of tonglen.
Tonglen is a Tibetan word that literally means "sending and
taking." The practice originated in India and came to Tibet
in the eleventh century. In tonglen practice, when we see or feel
suffering, we breathe in with the notion of completely feeling
it, accepting it, and owning it. Then we breathe out, radiating
compassion, lovingkindness, freshness; anything that encourages
relaxation and openness.
In this practice, it's not uncommon to find yourself blocked,
because you come face to face with your own fear, resistance, or
whatever your personal stuckness happens to be at that moment. At
that point, you can change the focus and do tonglen for yourself
, and for millions of others just like you, at that very moment,
who are feeling exactly the same misery.
I particularly like to encourage tonglen, on the spot. For
example, you're walking down the street and you see the pain of
another human being. On-the-spot tonglen means that you just
don't rush by; you actually breathe in with the wish that this
person can be free of suffering, and send them out some kind of
good heart or well-being. If seeing that other person's pain
brings up fear or anger or confusion, which often happens, just
start doing tonglen for yourself and all the other people who are
stuck in the very same way.
When you do tonglen on the spot, you simply breathe in and
breathe out, taking in pain and sending out spaciousness and
relief. When you tonglen as a formal practice, it has four
stages:
1) First,rest your mind briefly in a state of openness or
stillness.
2) Second, work with texture. Breathe in a feeling of hot, dark,
and heavy, and breathe out a feeling of cool, bright, and light.
Breathe in and radiate completely, through all the pores of your
body, until it feels synchronized with your in-and out-breathe.
3) Third, work with any painful personal situation that is real
to you. Traditionally, you begin by doing tonglen for someone you
care about. However, if your stuck, do the practice for your pain
and simultaneously for all those just like you who feel that kind
of suffering.
4) Finally, make the taking in and the sending out larger.
Whether your doing tonglen for someone you love or for someone
you see on television, do it for all the others in the same boat.
You could even do tonglen for people you consider your
enemies--those who have hurt you or others. Do tonglen for them,
thinking of them as having the same confusion and stuckness as
your find or yourself.
This is to say that tonglen can extend indefinitely. As you do
the practice, gradually, over time, your compassion naturally
expands-- and so does your realization that things are not as
solid as you thought. As you do this practice, at your own pace,
you'll be surprised to find yourself more and more able to be
there for others, even in what seemed like impossible situations.
- Pema Chodron from When Things Fall Apart:Heart Advice for
Difficult Times
Shiva Mahamrityunjaya Mantra:
tryambakam yajamahe sugandhim pushti-vardhanam
urvarukam iva bandhanan mrytyor mukshiya mamritat
In the translation of Arthur Berriedale Keith, 1914:
"OM. We worship and adore you, O three-eyed one, O Shiva.
You are sweet gladness, the fragrance of life, who nourishes us,
restores our health, and causes us to thrive. As, in due time,
the stem of the cucumber weakens, and the gourd is freed from the
vine, so free us from attachment and death, and do not withhold
immortality."
Literal rendering:
three-eyed one / we praise / the fragrant / the beneficent
like a cocumber / (drops off) from its stem / from death /
liberate / not from immortality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClxgIS-_X_g&feature=related
Doctors Without Borders has 100% of their donations going into
their work is the perfect place to contribute. They already have
had a presence in Haiti, and operate the largest clinic (amoung
3) in Port-au-Prince.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2592841/doctors_without_borders_providing_medical.html?cat=5
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/
Much Metta,
- Anna Ruiz, posted to NondualitySalon