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Love and Compassion
Wisdom23
Veteran
Do you find it easy to show love and compassion to all beings. What type of being is especially hard and how do you overcome this ?
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Compassion? Easier for me, bec it's part of my practice. I have
compassion for alot of things I'm trying to love. lololol
Acts of love and compassion are how Buddhists overcome this.
Acts means trying to change the intention that my Ego
is trying to sell. For 2 bucks, I might add.
My biggest challenge right now is actually my sons' family. Their dad died a few years ago, and their grandma and uncle never call, never email, never have any communication with them, where before they did. I'm sure part of it is just it's hard for them to see Eric (the one who died) in my children, but Grandma and Uncle are the only link my kids have to their father, and it's lacking because of decisions they make that I don't understand. How do I overcome it? I don't. I just work with it and my attitude and perception changes with time and helps me to become less upset over the situation and thus to be able to talk to my kids in a way that helps them be less upset.
I have a hard time loving wasps, too. They are the only thing that send me running, screaming, and waving my arms frantically like a little girl.
It seems hard, if not impossible to have compassion for others, when I don't know how it feels to be that person.
Loving and being responsible and compassionate is just plain hard, or so I find in my current situation.
If you are moving from a rural community in Oregon across the USA to NYC where, when you arrive, you will no longer need your car. Before you start your journey you would want your car to be in tip-top shape before leaving. You would also want to monitor and check it all along the way. Then when you get there you let it go (as there is no more need for it). The idea that you must give up ego at the beginning is a hinderance to practice (too much too soon).
Compassion is a natural result of practice. We also become more wise about it as we mature in our practice. In "Buddhist" countries compassion, love, generosity etc, tend to be starting points in life and are enhanced and integrated through practice. For those of us raised with more selfish tendencies, we have to "fake it until we make it" haha
Everything is the product of exploded stars. Nothing could be more miraculous or magnificent.
Everything is like... A miracle. It's impossible to not love everything when you think of where everything comes from.
It all came from freakin stars. Absolutely everything that you see on this planet without exception. If that doesn't inspire awe I don't know what will
I've been watching this series http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/other-shows/videos/other-shows-how-the-universe-works-videos.htm for the past few days. I could recommend it more.
"Every atom that makes your body was once inside a star. The atoms in your right hand could have come from a different star than the atoms in your left hand."
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 learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
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 everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
-Naomi Shihab Nye
Every day, when I Take Refuge, I remind myself of the 5 Precepts and recite those too... and tell myself:
"Wise Compassion, not Idiot Compassion.
Be Kind to everyone you meet today."
(an added benefit is that it drives them mad, and makes them feel guilty....
W|hen I \was a school principal, we had around 900 kids in my school. I couldn't get personally involved with all 900 and still do my job. So I selected groups and individuals who most needed my help -- ESOL kids, special ed kids, foreign students, minorities, and individuals who had needs beyond the average person.
STARS
A person "subscribes" to something.
You personally don't 'SUBscribe' to the generally held definition of what compassion......
I'm going to crawl back under my rock now..... :eek:
She lied.
Sorry, won't happien again.