(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)
Olympus, a friend of mine since 1969, moves into a rather rough area of his city in the early Autumn of 2011, an area where you do not go out after dark unless you have a car. And even then, you still have to get from your apartment to your car and vice versa.
He walks outside onto the street one day — and sees the same thing the Buddha saw when he took a stroll for the first time outside his palace grounds over 2,500 years ago! Suffering of all kinds. People poorly dressed, without boots and wearing thin clothing [ it’s now the middle of winter]. Those who are seriously suffering around mental health issues and addictions. Or, to quote the words of a buddhist chant:
An evil time, when relatives quarrel,
When people dress sloppily in clothes of rags,
Eating bad, cheap food,
…………………
Olympus’ experience of their suffering is raw. He wants to run back into his apartment.
I think about the practices of wishing health and well-being to others. In other words, he can use his experience of rawness created by the suffering of others to change the default setting from thinking about himself and his own concerns to thinking about others.
If you want to be miserable, think about yourself. If you want to be happy, think about others. <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche>
I write to Olympus about this:
Continuing our discussion of this evening……..
I was thinking on my way home tonight after our discussion about your saying you “try to be open” when you see suffering in its all its rawness in your neighbourhood.
I don’t.
I find it works better to simply be compassionately aware of how closed\fearful I am at any given moment, rather than try to be open. The repeated awareness eventually works its magic.
It helps, at least for me, when I am walking outside, to remember phrases like
- “All sentient beings have been my mothers;”
- “Put that mind of fearfulness in the cradle of lovingkindness;”
- I say to each being I pass “I wish you happiness and all causes of happiness.” and
- “This is what the Buddha saw when he walked outside his palace one day.”
The very next day I am listening to a CD by Pema Chodron entitled The Places that Scare You. She says
I recommend using [aspiration practice; offering compassion to others] as an on-the-spot practice. …For one thing, there is never any lack of subject matter. When a strong unwanted feeling arises or we see someone hurting, there is nothing theortetical about what we’ll use to practice…Daily-life practice is never abstract. As soon as uncomfortable emotions come up…we extend our thoughts and concern to other people who feel the same discomfort…with the wish that all of us could be free of this… <source: Chapter 9>
There’s an added benefit to offering compassion to others: it helps soften our own accumulated negative karma.
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