All the suffering in the world comes from seeking pleasure for oneself.
All the happiness in the world comes from seeking pleasure for others.
Shantideva
Tag: friendship
Really seeing the person today
The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I’d say that compassion begins with attention.
Daniel Goleman
The past is gone…
Without a doubt, the past is gone. Unfortunately, when we carry it with us every day, our hurt feelings, judgments and anger keep recycling within us. We try to put a stop to it through pronouncements about the future, declaring, “I will never let _____ happen again!” These efforts at controlling our life are largely wishful thinking. So, unless you feel totally at peace with yourself, make it a daily or weekly routine to ask yourself these questions:
- What unresolved pieces of my past am I carrying with me today?
- Why am I still carrying that?
- What do I need to do to let it go?
Make it a priority in your life to lighten the load you carry by letting go of what has happened in the past.
Judith Johnston, The problem with the Past and the Future
How love makes us vulnerable
The big challenge through life is not letting our hearts get hardened. We are born into a world where we feel a danger of getting hurt if we allow ourselves be open at our deepest level. So there is a tendency to shy away from this, to armour our hearts, to hide behind our words or our achievements. Or we numb out the pain that comes from our wanting to be seen but are afraid to risk it. It takes courage to stay open, to tell our story with our whole heart, to step out when there are no guarantees, to stay open to a relationship that may or may not work out, to keep the heart soft and vulnerable.
When I was a child, my grandmother died and was buried in the churchyard in Castlecomer, Ireland. The following year I went there on holiday. One day we drove to visit relatives, I in the back seat with my grandfather. As we pass the gravelled driveway leading up to the churchyard, my grandfather, thinking he was unobserved, pressed his face against the window of the car and with a small, hidden motion of his hand, waved. It was then I came to my first understanding of the majesty and vulnerability of love.
Herbert O Driscoll, A Doorway on Time
What kindness really is
I really like this poem and think there is a great truth in it. Real commitment to one another has a depth which is learned in times of difficulty. Love is talked about a lot today but what we seek deep down is a real kindness which is more than just words, but proves itself in deeds:
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye, The Words Under the Words
…by seing what is in front of us
We train ourselves to see that what we have is rich enough, by coming back to this breath and letting go of our stories. In this way we content ourselves with what really going on and let go of what we think would be good for us, what would actually make us happy.
If you can’t see what you are looking for,
see what’s there.
It’s enough.
Mark Nepo
Mindfulbalance 