Dear Friends, Yesterday, we tuned into the first aspect of compassion – empathy, the quivering of the heart in response to suffering. Today, we look translating that empathy into responsiveness. Christina Feldman starts this section: Empathy teaches us to listen to and understand suffering and its causes. Embodiment is concerned with what we do with that understanding. Embodiment… Read More »
Dear Friends, When the Sunday Morning Insight Meditation Group listened to a recorded talk by Christina Feldman about compassion last year, I was interested to hear Christina bring in some nuances about compassion. I was familiar with the Pāli word karuna for compassion, but Christina mentions another word – anukhampa – what she calls “a profound empathy, the… Read More »
Dear Friends, There’s a Pāli word, dukkha, that Christina Feldman discusses in the context of compassion. Dukkha has many different translations. Some of the original translators used the word “suffering”, but more recent translators use words like unsatisfactoriness, stress, dis-ease. (An article by Glenn Wallis lists several alternative translations:https://www.lionsroar.com/what-is-dukkha/ ) Joseph Goldstein has described the origins of the… Read More »
Dear Friends, We now move into the next chapter of Christina Feldman’s Boundless Heart. The focus is on the heart quality of compassion. At the heart of compassion is the invitation to turn toward suffering. Just as the longing for love, safety, and respect is a universal longing and story, so too is pain a universal and inescapable story.… Read More »
Dear Friends, Christina Feldman closes the first chapter on Immeasurable Kindness by discussing bringing metta into what she calls “the world of events and experience”. She notes that aversion can pop up in many scenarios, not just in the realm of human relationships. We can bring this quality of metta to whatever circumstances we encounter. Christina writes, We… Read More »
Dear Friends, When we start with the practice of mettā, we start with people or scenarios where we can feel the warmth of kindness – a benefactor, a friend, a pet, maybe ourselves (though often not!). We develop some skills and start to trust that our hearts can be open. As we gain confidence, we can start to… Read More »
Dear Friends, The next category of beings to whom we can extend our good wishes is rather blandly called the “neutral” person. These are people we encounter day to day but with whom with have have no real strong association. Christina Feldman aptly describes this category of beings with: “We know them by their function”. (page 41) When… Read More »
Dear Friends, Ānanda was a long-time attendant of the Buddha, and he’s one of my favorite characters from the suttas. He often asks the questions that we’d want to ask, or says the things that we’d say, and the Buddha gives a teaching to him – and by extension, to us. At one point, Ānanda says to the… Read More »
Dear Friends, Generosity is a favorite topic of mine. In studying and practicing generosity, I’ve learned much about qualities of the heart. Generosity is so much more than just a monetary exchange or giving a gift. There are many ways to give that we may already be doing – through our presence, and the way we are in… Read More »
Dear Friends, Galway Kinnell’s poem St Francis and the Sow starts: The budstands for all things,even for those things that don’t flower,for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessaryto reteach a thing its loveliness,to put a hand on its browof the flowerand retell it in words and in touchit is lovelyuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing… Read More »
Dear Friends, There are many ways to cultivate mettā. Many teachers will lead a practice with the use of phrases. I like how Christina Feldman describes the purpose of these phrases: “The conscious cultivation of metta as a meditative pathway employs the use of a few simple phrases that give shape and language to the intention of metta.… Read More »
Dear Friends, Yesterday, I shared Christina Feldman’s idea that with mindfulness, we “turn towards” experience, and then with kindness, we can “stand beside” it. (Some of us may remember Jeanne sharing teachings on this approach too.) With this attitude, aversion doesn’t have to go away – wow! Christina says, “we learn to bring an attitude of kindness to… Read More »
Dear Friends, Turn on the news, and you’ll likely read about some manifestation of hatred, aversion, ill-will, fear, or variations thereof. Wars, crime, violence. Maybe not as news-worthy, you might have your own internal messages that come from that same source – impatience, judging, blame, harsh self-talk, and so on. We can even have aversion to aversion! “I’m… Read More »
Dear Friends, Let’s move into chapter 1 of Christina Feldman’s Boundless Heart. This chapter is a deep dive into the first quality of heart. The Pāli word for this quality is mettā. Christina describes the roots of this word: The word metta draws on the Pali/Sanskrit word mitta, which translates as “friend.” In turn mitta draws on an earlier… Read More »
Dear Friends, The qualities of heart-mind we’ll be investigating this month are referred to as the brahma viharas, which is often translated as the “divine abodes” – and that can seem like something to which we cannot relate. However, Christina Feldman points out these qualities aren’t unfamiliar. Likely all of us can think of times we have experienced kindness,… Read More »
