Hey Guys,
A lot of waiting in waiting rooms this past month, waiting for the big pronouncements from the doctors. Three wondrous Practices have help me sit here ...
... Just Sitting Shikantaza, as What Is, in Peace, Wholeness, Equanimity, letting All Flow through and as one ... nothing more needed, nothing to "wait" for which is not already fully present ...
... Metta (Loving Kindness) for the other patients sitting here ... for all suffering Sentient Beings (you and me too) ...
May they be free of suffering; may they feel safe and still.
May they be free of enmity; may they be loving, grateful and kind.
May they be healthy and at ease in all their ills.
May they be at peace, embracing all conditions of life
... and Tonglen (Giving and Receiving), a Tibetan Practice that has become popular in many Zen Sangha in the West. The aim is to transform, through visualization, the human way we encounter difficulties into the way a symbolic Bodhisattva would approach them with openness, forgiveness and compassion. The basic instruction is simply to breathe in the suffering of others and breathe out love and joy. As my friend Kokuu says, "Giving and Receiving is not a magical or mystical practice and we are not actually breathing in the suffering of others (although if you could, would you hesitate?) but transforming our own mind and heart. We find that we have boundless capacity to take in the poisons of the world, and boundless capacity to send forth goodness. The more negativity that can be taken in, the more peace and goodness there is to breathe out into the world."
Sitting in this waiting room today with about 50 other cancer patients, many much worse off than I am right now, it eases the heart in shared condition, Compassion and even Joy hoped for all of us.
Here is a little talk on this ...
Gassho, J SatTodayLAH
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