from “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics)” by Pema Chödrön -
“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. Sometimes we feel good and strong. Sometimes we feel inadequate and weak. But like mother love, maitri is unconditional. No matter how we feel, we can aspire to be happy.”
When I got sober, I realized I needed to start loving myself. For the most part I do. There are days that I get stuck in my head and lov8ng myself stops. It is a vicious circle of events when that happens.
Unconditional friendliness. Gotta love it Scott, Ty. And especially thx dear Ani Pema!
May I use my loving parent voice when shame arises.
Being sober does a tonne of good for my mental health
Thank you Almighty Father for your loving presense and guidance
I just read one of your threads and thought maybe another option to help your journey might be useful. Take a look, maybe you find something that will help.
from “The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times (Shambhala Classics)” by Pema Chödrön -
“That we close down is not a problem. In fact, to become aware of when we do so is an important part of the training. The first step in cultivating loving-kindness is to see when we are erecting barriers between ourselves and others”
I really love the quotes you share here. They always give me food for thought.
I also have now established a bit of a routine of joining Recovery Dharma online meetings several days a week. I always opt for an evening meeting, the ones that are at 8pm/9pm in my time zone. I feel this is a great day to wind down. I get to be in a welcoming environment with caring people who are all involved in recovery somehow. The meditation always gets me to come back to the present moment and focus on my needs for the evening. The reading relaxes me. The shares fill me with compassion and gratitude. After that I always feel at peace and relaxed.
Just wanted to share this and encouraged everyone who may be considering to join an online meeting.
I’m really into my mantras these days. It seems all Indian and Hinduism to me and I’m very fascinated by it all. I’m also finding it overwhelming. Like where to begin? What to read? Do I want to begin?
I’m going to book mark your thread and read a little of it each day. See what I can find.
Is there an easy read for a beginner. I say easy read because I don’t learn good from reading I learn very well from doing though.
Anyway. I’m glad this thread got bumped up today and I saw it. Looking forward to reading what y’all are doing or learning. And how you be an.
Hey Eric,
if you are more of a doing-type-of-person and don’t get much out of reading texts by yourself I can wholeheartedly recommend trying out a meeting, even an online one.
You get to be with likeminded people, practice meditation (THE core buddhist practice), a portion of the book will be read aloud and then shares. The way the meeting is structured, often the shares will be somewhat related to either the meditation or the reading.
This way you get to experience a communal and experience based approach to the practice and the principles behind it.
Can’t recommend it enough.
Pay close attention to the experience of heavy handedness or light touch in the way you go about your life. In the cultivation of loving kind-ness, it can be a struggle to try to do the right thing—is it possible to discover a glimpse of spaciousness within that struggle?
From working with the Slogans of Atisha. A practical guide to leading a compassionate life by Judith L. Lief
I’m depresed. Opened Working with the Slogans of Atisha. Read this.
10
Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself.
You may want to develop greater compassion and the ability to take on the suffering of others, but what about yourself? What about your own suffering? According to this slogan, that is where you start. You begin by recognizing your own suffering.
It is not always easy to look into our own discontent. But if we are to work with others we should try to understand our own suffering as deeply as possible. We need to look into our many layers of suffering, including everything from physical pain, emotional confusion, regrets, anxieties, fears, the whole deal. We cannot hide out. We may prefer to think that we are beyond that, and our situation may be very fortunate, but we need to bring out whatever is there.
Whatever suffering we dig up, from our surface to our depths, we take in as fully as possible. We breathe it in wholeheartedly. It is a part of us, it is real. Why does it fester? What keeps it going?
It is our avoidance and our fear. We don’t have to be heroic. We could start by taking just a little bit of our suffering and breathing it in.
We could accept it little by little.
Each move we make in this direction, which sounds so difficult, in fact, is a tremendous relief. It is like the story of the return of the prodigal son, where the family is once again whole and there is rejoicing.
The idea of this slogan is to take in your own suffering first, and then expand that to take in the suffering of others. It is to be compassionate to yourself as well as other beings. Seeing clearly the nature of your own suffering is a way to understand more clearly the suffering of others.
Today’s practice.
In your sending and taking practice, this week place attention on your own situation, breathing in various forms of suffering and breathing out to yourself loving-kindness, openness, and strength. To conclude, reflect on other beings who suffer in similar ways and extend your loving-kindness to them as well.
Honestly this is one of the most curageous things I can imagine.
I had a family member with a very serious mental illness. All my life I have been afraid of being or becoming like them. I still am. So when depression, anxiety or low moods hit I try and try to run away. I still am not good at dealing with that.
Breathing in my suffering sounds like heroism to me
I have not read much by Thich Nhat Hanh til now. I started with “You are here”.
The heart of Buddhist practice is to generate our own presence in such a way that we can touch deeply the life that is here and available in every moment. We have to be here for ourselves; we have to be here for the people we love; we have to be here for life with all its wonders. The message of our Buddhist practice is simple and clear: “I am here for you.”
From
From Working with the Slogans of Atisha, by Judith L. Lief
Be grateful to everyone
(…)
According to this slogan, we should be especially grateful for having to deal with annoying people and difficult situations, because without them we would have nothing to work with. Without them, how could we practice patience, exertion, mindfulness, loving-kindness or compassion? It is by dealing with such challenges that we grow and develop. So we should be very grateful to have them.
Today’s practice
To begin with, reflect on the things in your life for which you are grateful. Notice what happens when you acknowledge all that you have to be grateful for. Now reflect on something difficult, the kind of situation or person that would not inspire conventional gratitude. Can you extend your gratitude to include that as well? What happens when you do so?
I learn very well from doing though.
