A personal blog by a graying (mostly Anglo with light African-American roots) gay left leaning liberal progressive married college-educated Buddhist Baha'i BBC/NPR-listening Professor Emeritus now following the Dharma in Minas Gerais, Brasil.
Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis upon which your mind is established. (SN 12.40) Develop meditation on compassion, for when you develop meditation on compassion, any cruelty will be abandoned. (MN 62)
Compassion fails when it produces sorrow. (Vm 9.94)
Reflection
The power of compassion is that it can rise above tragedy, and its value is that it can lift us beyond feeling sorrow. Encountering the many forms of suffering in the world rather than looking away will inevitably bring mental pain in the form of sorrow. But compassion is an emotional triumph insofar as it brings out our best capacity for caring about the well-being of others. Compassion represents victory over sadness.
Daily Practice
There is plenty of opportunity these days to exercise our capacity for compassion: so many people dying, so many lives disrupted, so much tragedy on an epic scale. Open yourself to all this but with the strength of heart to feel compassion rather than sorrow. Compassion is a “trembling of the heart in the presence of suffering,” but the heart is trembling with loving care for the suffering one rather than with fear or dread.
Tomorrow: Refraining from Malicious Speech One week from today: Cultivating Appreciative Joy
Share your thoughts and join the conversation on social media #DhammaWheel
Inspiration from the International Plum Village Community May 2024
"Our life will be filled with happiness if we can help others around us. But if we spend our whole life building up our name and our fortune, we cannot find happiness. We might have a lot of money, a big house, and a luxurious car, but that’s not real happiness. We can only taste real happiness when we can help others."
