Dear friends,
Marie will facilitate, and we will recite the Five Mindfulness Trainings, focusing on the First Mindfulness Training, Reverence for Life.
Reverence For Life
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.
On Memorial Day, we will discuss the First Mindfulness Training: Reverence for Life and reflect on our experience with practicing generosity throughout the month of May. As I reflected on the month, I was struck by the poignancy and potency of the evenings we shared together and by how they affected my day-to-day thoughts, feelings and actions. To refresh your memory, these are the topics of the last four Mondays:
I saw you fall, so I am helping: Generosity and the Second Mindfulness Training, with Annie
Practicing Generosity in Community Creates Change, with Adriana & Marie
Giving Can Make You Richer, with Camille
From Gratitude to Generosity, with Mick and Sr HaiAn. You can watch Sister Hai An’s wonderful talk here.
Throughout these evenings, two themes came up again and again: compassion and interbeing. And, it was the insight of compassion and interbeing that led us, when planning the month, to become a Second Body with the Latina cancer patients/survivors and their families, supported by Nueva Vida.
In the First Mindfulness Training, we commit to cultivating compassion and interbeing. We cultivate these (and other important insights - openness, non-discrimination and non-attachment to views) in order to transform violence, fanaticism and dogmatism in ourselves and in the world.
Having spent most of my career trying to transform suffering in the world (mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa), I see how the lop-sidedness of my insights (both compassion and interbeing) led me to skip over myself and focus all of my energy on others. Living and working in Zambia, I was deeply disturbed by the inequities of everyday life and how normal they were. I poured all of myself into my work - convinced that somehow, if I gave it everything I had, things would get better.
It took several years, a resistant form of typhoid and a wise healer to make me see that ignoring my own needs was not helping anyone. When I realized this, which took some doing (it had to be drawn on paper for me to see it), the changes were immediate. I stopped working as relentlessly and started caring for myself.
As I healed, I restructured my schedule, cordoning off time for myself, family and friends. I was just as effective in my work, if not moreso, and happier. When I look back at this, I smile with compassion. My conditioning was so strong that it steamrolled over the teachings and trainings that I cherish so dearly. While this conditioning (or “unwholesome seed”, as Thay would call it) is still alive in me, it spends more time in my basement than in my living room. And when it does burst into the living room, it might take some time, but I recognize it.
Between now and Monday, I invite you to explore some of these questions:
To what extent do you feel and/or act generously with yourself? With your loved ones? With those you don’t know?
How do you feel after you have been generous with yourself? With your loved ones? With those you don’t know?
How, in practical terms, do you cultivate the insights of compassion and/or interbeing?
What does it feel like to practice generosity in community (as part of OHMC second bodying with Nueva Vida)?
I will close with an inspiring quote from For a Future to Be Possible, Thich Nhat Hanh writes that the First Mindfulness Training is “... born from the awareness that lives everywhere are being destroyed. We see the suffering caused by the destruction of life, and we undertake to cultivate compassion and use it as a source of energy for the protection of people, animals, plants, and minerals. The First Precept is a precept of compassion, karuna -- the ability to remove suffering and transform it...
Feeling compassion is not enough. We have to learn to express it. That is why love must go together with understanding. Understanding and insight show us how to act.
Our real enemy is forgetfulness. If we nourish mindfulness every day and water the seeds of peace in ourselves and those around us, we become alive, and we can help ourselves and others realize peace and compassion. Life is so precious, yet in our daily lives we are usually carried away by our forgetfulness, anger, and worries, lost in the past, unable to touch life in the present moment. When we are truly alive, everything we do or touch is a miracle. To practice mindfulness is to return to life in the present moment. The practice of the First Precept is a celebration of reverence for life. When we appreciate and honor the beauty of life, we will do everything in our power to protect all life.”