Slogan #11

When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi

“Can’t say this enough: your nervous system is designed for a world that doesn’t exist anymore. That’s why kindness is everything.”

Ethan Nichtern

Wisdom without compassion and loving-kindness is bondage. Loving kindness is a heartfelt yearning for the well-being and happiness of others, based on a similar yearning for oneself. A deliberate compassion practice is the catalyst that moves us in the direction of the Bodhisattva – this process of awakening is strength training for the mind and heart! Can you direct loving-kindness inwards and be open, receptive, accepting, and loving to all parts of yourself? Accepting your shadow doesn't give it strength; suppressing these emotions does. Can you embrace both strength and vulnerability, discernment and fallibility, and power and fragility? Can you celebrate your humanness? Can you create space between action and reaction? Nothing is fixed, we are all interconnected, and therefore, everything is possible. Meditation is an act of faith to dive into space, into the depths of experience, and a doorway to something bigger than ourselves.

Stay present. Stay curious. Stay open. At the end of the day, would you rather be right or would you rather be free? Freedom is not believing everything that you think. Can you stand in your own truth without making someone else wrong? Your conceptual mind can transform suffering and adversity into the path of spiritual awakening. Your perceptual heart interprets information through the sensory body in order to break your addiction to reactive patterns with Tonglen. Open to the possibility of continuous practice and authentic presence.

“The bodhisattva clearly sees that no one can be happy or content while others are suffering. There is no individual awakening. No one can be happy, no one can be enlightened, unless everyone is happy and enlightened. Self and other are not two truly different existing entities. They are mutually conditioned positions or concepts.”

Norman Fischer