The Way of Compassion
I’m looking to the day when The suffering of others really does break our hearts. When we say, first things first, and stop shopping and throwing parties and upgrading office furniture until everyone in this city has had enough to eat. When we say, I can’t keep going knowing how many children experience terror in [...]
Let them be themselves and run their lives. You worry about your own. Continually and regularly point out to them their brilliance; they don’t see it clearly and they don’t know its immensity. Be yourself, so that they receive the gift of a real relationship and of the real you. Do your [...]
In our culture, when we talk about love, we typically talk about loving another person: I love Sonia. I love my grandfather. What do we mean by that? When we love others, we treat them with compassion, kindness, and patience. We perceive their gifts and beauties and power. We champion and affirm what is best [...]
For me, the process of transformation often begins with pain – a pain that grows in its intensity until it is great enough that I have to look at it and face its causes. One of the greatest tragedies of our culture is that we look at emotional pain–and its manifestations of depression, fatigue, apathy, [...]
In 12 Step recovery programs, the first step is “admitting you have a problem.” I want to change their language a bit. I want to ask you to have the courage to admit something in your life that isn’t working. To admit an area of your life where you aren’t satisfied, where your life is [...]
This is a forgiveness meditation I recently wrote. Its about forgiving others and ourselves. *** You deserve more, more joy and satisfaction and moments of peace. And in order to have all of that, you need to become less, to release the burdens you carry. Not the rent or your mother’s illness [...]
Love is not only the thing we define it as in our culture – the close, warm, affectionate feelings toward others. The goodwill towards them. That is only one small thread in the great fabric of love. Love is the relaxation of all worry and fear, the coming home to wholeness. Love is the container [...]
Are you playing these roles in your life? The editor, censoring what you say and do to fit in The examiner, wondering and seeking to confirm if you are “good enough” The critic, highlighting what you did wrong The judge, declaring a guilty verdict The skeptic, waiting for further evidence before you follow your own [...]
For just a few moments, leave your day-to-day identity behind, and follow me into the sphere of imagination. Imagine yourself looking down upon a great open expanse of land. See its golden reeds, the green hills in the distance, and the blue sky beyond. See the cloud wisps slowly shifting above. Upon the land, in [...]
Let me tell you who I think you are. I think you are a miracle of divine creation. You are powerful beyond what we in our time and place can even imagine. You are equal to everyone else on this planet in your potential and infinite and that potential. You are a brilliant genius–I have [...]
