Report 74

Metta / Loving Kindness

I used this week's focus as an excuse to revisit Tonglen which we all tried together a few months ago.  I found myself in a different stance or relationship to the practice -- much easier to breath in acceptance, peace, kindness in relation to the suffering in myself and the world, much easier to breath out those same qualities (acceptance, peace, kindness) in relation to the radiance in the world.  Somehow, I didn't struggle as much with a sense of imposing some personal sense of joy (frivolity?) or whatever -- it all seemed part of the functioning of the whole situation.

This has been a very hard week -- still working too hard, also feeling emotionally drained.  But this situation doesn't make kindness and meditation more difficult, but rather easier to take on and perhaps more necessary.  I found myself thinking about Eliza's mindfulness salad dream and a few words that Bruce said about mindfulness in collapse -- the sense that "lack" is not something to feel ashamed or sorry about, but rather something to find in yourself and acknowledge, yes, in a positive way.