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Compassion
Jan. 21st, 2025 07:30 amPart of the reason I started with Pema Chodron is that Buddhist teachers are good at emphasizing lovingkindness for all, which is something I've honestly been struggling a lot with for the last few years. I think social media algorithms really tend to fuel rage bait, and I find myself angrier a lot of the time. And the political situation just fuels that. Some of the anger is, of course, justified, but I don't necessarily like the person it is producing.
The chapters I read for today had a couple themes. One was about the role of meditation in self-acceptance. "Trying to fix ourselves is not helpful. It implies struggle and self-denigration. Denigrating ourselves is probably the major way we cover over bodhicitta." That is really a fascinating perspective. It builds on the idea that our faults (anger, fear, etc) are the same energies that fuel are virtues, when you learn to sit with them in meditation without clinging to them but making use of the energies. It also is very alien to me, honestly! Every new year, every new start, I always have this strong desire to fix myself, improve myself, make myself into a better person. Chodron instead emphasizes the need to see yourself as you are at this moment and love and accept that person.
"For an aspiring bodhisattva, the essential practice is to cultivate maitri. In the Shambala teachings this is called 'placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness.' Another image for maitri or loving kindness is that of a mother bird who protects and cares for her young until they are strong enough to fly away. People sometimes ask "Who am I in this image--the mother or the chicks?" The answer is we're both: both the loving mother and those ugly little chicks. It's easy to identify with the babies--blind, raw and desparate for attention. We are a poignant mixture of something that isn't all that beautiful and yet is dearly loved. Whether this is our attitude toward ourselves or toward others, it is the key to learning how to love. We stay with ourselves and others when we're screaming for food and have no feathers and also when we are more grown up and more cute by worldly standards.
In cultivating loving-kindness, we train first to be honest, loving, and compassionate toward ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness." (Chodron, 42)
In the same chapter she also talks about the maitri meditation I'm a little familiar with, where you begin with loving-kindness for yourself, then extend it to loved ones, friends, neutral people, those who irritate us, everyone as a group, and then all beings. I've been struggling with loving-kindness towards political opponents, but perhaps I can start smaller and work on it. (That is what the meditation is supposed to do!)
The chapters I read for today had a couple themes. One was about the role of meditation in self-acceptance. "Trying to fix ourselves is not helpful. It implies struggle and self-denigration. Denigrating ourselves is probably the major way we cover over bodhicitta." That is really a fascinating perspective. It builds on the idea that our faults (anger, fear, etc) are the same energies that fuel are virtues, when you learn to sit with them in meditation without clinging to them but making use of the energies. It also is very alien to me, honestly! Every new year, every new start, I always have this strong desire to fix myself, improve myself, make myself into a better person. Chodron instead emphasizes the need to see yourself as you are at this moment and love and accept that person.
"For an aspiring bodhisattva, the essential practice is to cultivate maitri. In the Shambala teachings this is called 'placing our fearful mind in the cradle of loving-kindness.' Another image for maitri or loving kindness is that of a mother bird who protects and cares for her young until they are strong enough to fly away. People sometimes ask "Who am I in this image--the mother or the chicks?" The answer is we're both: both the loving mother and those ugly little chicks. It's easy to identify with the babies--blind, raw and desparate for attention. We are a poignant mixture of something that isn't all that beautiful and yet is dearly loved. Whether this is our attitude toward ourselves or toward others, it is the key to learning how to love. We stay with ourselves and others when we're screaming for food and have no feathers and also when we are more grown up and more cute by worldly standards.
In cultivating loving-kindness, we train first to be honest, loving, and compassionate toward ourselves. Rather than nurturing self-denigration, we begin to cultivate a clear-seeing kindness." (Chodron, 42)
In the same chapter she also talks about the maitri meditation I'm a little familiar with, where you begin with loving-kindness for yourself, then extend it to loved ones, friends, neutral people, those who irritate us, everyone as a group, and then all beings. I've been struggling with loving-kindness towards political opponents, but perhaps I can start smaller and work on it. (That is what the meditation is supposed to do!)
