This Monday night, Fabiola will facilitate. She shares:
For the past four years, I have been dealing with pain on the left side of my body. Three months ago my doctor recommended that I start swimming. I responded that I did not want to be in more pain. She looked at me and simply suggested that I work with the pain instead of resisting it. I left her office wondering if I really heard her correctly. I wondered if she had any mindfulness training.
I have now been swimming for the past two months, three days per week. I have learned so much about the difference between resisting and embracing. Pain is our body's way of communicating with us. In my particular case, the pain is related to my visual system. My eyes do not converge, so as I age, my long distance and short distance sight changes. These changes are causing stress in the way my body functions in physical space. My internal dialogue is very strong. I was a very active person before this challenge, so my ego pushes in one direction. While my mindfulness practice waters kindness and compassion towards myself.
This Monday night we will concentrate on the fourth mindfulness training: Loving Speech and Deep Listening. We will read the training together and water the seeds that transform anger, violence, and fear into loving kindness towards ourselves and others.
Loving Speech and Deep Listening
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations.
Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to speaking truthfully using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope. When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I will practice mindful breathing and walking in order to recognize and to look deeply into its roots, especially in my wrong perceptions and lack of understanding of the suffering in myself and in the other person. I will speak and listen in a way that can help myself and the other person to release the suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to utter words that can cause division or discord. I will make daily efforts, in my speaking and listening, to nourish my capacity for understanding, love, joy, and inclusiveness, and gradually transform anger, violence, and fear that lie deep in my consciousness.
For the complete Mindfulness Trainings, please visit our sangha's website here.