LEAN ON ME, WHEN YOU’RE NOT STRONG.
Those of my venerability might remember the Bill Withers song. Withers voice was soft and strong and had such a rich timbre, you could feel the arms of his soul reaching out. Or perhaps it was his “Grandma’s Hands”, another song about the lineage of being held with loving kindness. Yet, Bill’s kindness was not syrupy or sentimental. It was strong. Then, of course Ringo’s masterpiece, “Octopus’ Garden” was about how octopi attract and protect their mates by surrounding themselves with reflecting sea trinkets in a garden. For Ringo, who had grown up with poverty and illness, the song was about escaping a world of pressure to an undersea sanctuary of kindness and peace.
In the 90’s Veruca Salt had a song titled “Eight Arms To Hold You” which was the working title of the Beatles second film “Help” adapted from a line in the song “From Me To You”. There was little sentimental about Veruca Salt, who were direct descendants of the Riot Grrrls. Yet, the strength and ferocity of their music had the power of holding you as the world came crashing around. Kindness is strength. Caring is powerful. And compassion may be the bravest we can be. Compassion not only supports those we hold, but ourselves as well. We are empowered by the strength we feel as we are steadfast for those who need us. There has been no greater feeling in my life than when I have been there for someone I loved.
Although, I frequently did mess that up by laboring over what I should do, or what I might say. Making it about myself. We’ve all done this. We let our pride and self-interest distance ourselves from the simple act of holding another. When a frightened child comes into their mother’s room at night, they don’t need to be schooled in logic. They don’t need to be told their fears are misplaced. They need to be held. They need the strong arms of someone who loves them despite their fear. And when the fear subsides, they might need to walk back to their room. Loving arms know when to hold and when to let go. That is why the Buddhist teachings say that true compassion is a balance of wisdom and caring. In Vajrayana Buddhism we refer to the appropriate relationship to the teacher as “mogu”, which translates to longing and respect. Both ideas posit two conventionally counter-posed energies that create balance. In the former instance we have caring, which is our heart’s effort to hold another, combined with the wisdom to let go and create the distance we need to allow the other to grow. In the case of Mogu, we have the heart connection of love which is balanced by having the self-respect to not lose ourselves in that love. We also love our teacher but offer them the respect to protect their space and personal dignity. We respect our teachers by emulating their example as we grow into our own expression of dignity and strength.
Compassion is not co-dependence. True Compassion is strength.
When I was a boy my mother was young, beautiful and insecure. My father was away much of the time and during that time her life was unstable, chaotic, and chronically underfunded. Yet the love she held for her children was nonetheless unshakable. However, along with the strength of her love, her fear was also transmitted to us. Love and fear were her gifts. In the years that came my father’s career developed, and as it did our economic concerns lessened. And yet as he became successful he grew away from her. Insecurities changed but fear remained impactful on our lives. Children love swimming pools but pools don’t care for them. My mother’s love was ever present and yet her frightened loneliness was always there. Over time, her life became truly challenging. As if by some karmic plan she was forced from one insecure situation to another. And yet, it seemed her higher power had guided her to greater strength and independence. To her credit, my mother never became bitter or vindictive. And in time, she gained great power. She was a vessel of her belief and a loving support to her children, but also her world. I was always welcome in any of her humble homes. They always become our home. Even as she had less material comfort than before the divorce, and even as her insecurities had, in many ways, come to fruition, my mother gained a spiritual strength that was an inspiration to all who knew her. She went from being a fire that offered love and pain to becoming to the earth itself, stable, loving and true.
Like any mammal, we humans feel more than we think. We think we know, but what we know is informed by how the instinctive way we feel about them. feel a We feel love and we feel fear. And though our lower instincts drive us to self-protective, defensive acquisition, materialism does not calm our deepest fear and anything we achieve is never as healing to our spirit as being held in the arms of love. And nothing that strengthens us as much as leaving those arms to stand on our own. But the greatest expression of love may be when we share our strength with those who need us. Inside, no matter what we achieve for ourselves, we all yearn for the strength of a mother tigress resting with her pride. Or an octopus arranging its garden of sea glass for its bride. Or a fawn looking to its mother for guidance, protection, and love. When a newborn looks to a parent who loves them there is an energy exchange that is a transmission of one of the strongest forces in our world. But that love heals the caregiver as it nurtures the child. We are strong enough to allow others in need to lean on us. Not collapse into us, or become dependent on us, but lean on us until we both become strong.
Holding others with our love is a love that holds the whole world.
Kindness is accessed by gentleness, so we sometimes view it as inconsequential or miss it all together. Kindness doesn’t have as large a handle as aggression, so when push comes to shout, it’s a challenge to remember it’s simple power. We often regard kindness as something we’re ‘supposed’ to do or we use it as a placeholder for more active feelings that may later come raging to the fore. When kindness is used to deny our feelings we are being unkind to ourselves. We are trying a bit too hard to be civil. But if this is not how we really feel, then the other steel-toed shoe will 
When we are triggered, we are neurologically panicked and do not have easy access to serenity and peace of mind. When pressured, it is far easier to reach for the cudgel than to rest in the space of balance. When we are pressured, we react and want the world to react to us. With all kindness, I must say, this is very weak. The way of warriorship is to practice meditation regularly so that we are trained to respond with the space and balance that is self-kindness. From that high vantage, we can offer the world genuine kindness. This reflexively feels better than the afflictions we place ourselves in to. When we feel better, we are better, and it matters less what anyone did or didn’t do. That’s them. They are not my business. My job is not to figure out anyone else or to blame anyone. I feel as I feel. I can own that. My primary job is to be genuine and kind. From there I can see my world.
One of the best things I have ever done was to look up at the sky. This simple act brings a keen perspective to our ground eye view whenever it happens
time and space and offering a script of how they saw themselves. If the gods and goddesses depicted in the sky were not corporeal then perhaps they represented energies common to all beings. Debating the existence of gods and goddesses is missing the point. Humans were trying to describe something from their ancient history in the designated patterns in the sky. Orion the hunter, Taurus the bull, the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper were ways to explain what and who they were. And maybe these pictures also explain who we are now. And perhaps what we are to become. It’s possible that the climate difficulties we’re facing on Earth will force us to find other alternatives. Perhaps we are being urged by the spirit of the universe to move psychologically, conceptually, socially and technologically toward the sky.
Some people look to the grandness of the sky and see themselves as a god. Some people look to the sky and in comparison feel they are nothing at all. The Buddha taught that from the latter perspective we can offer great love, kindness and healing to the world. From the vantage of serving the universe without centering on our-selves, we are open to understanding the greater patterns of things.
Of course, there are many who have had healthy homes and many who maintain balanced relationships in their lives. Yet, they still struggle and suffer as we all do. Rather than living in gratitude, many suffer from comparing themselves to those who have it better. No matter how happy our lives have been we are all subject to pain and suffering. And although pain is a natural and necessary component in our lives, we somehow believe we are being punished whenever we are in pain. We feel gilt for the pain others ae experiencing. We mistake this very natural process as personal. We believe we are sinners who are too ashamed to face their creator and so wander the world in shame. We are unworthy of love, unworthy of success, unworthy of happiness. By believing we are somehow at fault, we miss our opportunity to feel at home in ourselves.
The foundation of caring for our world lies in the strength in the warrior’s authentic being. In this sense, a warrior is not based on 
In this way, resentments are like weights we carry around. Aside from whatever ill feeling we have, our resentments instigate toxic philosophies embedded in our history. We relive these feelings each time we retell these stories.
During this time of personal, social, and environmental stress, developing compassion is so important. Yet, compassion isn’t always the first thing we think of when we feel attacked and triggered. If we unpack becoming triggered, we find we often become triggered when we feel overwhelmed and victimized. When this is the case, we most reflexively adopt a defensive posture. This is understandable. We close our eyes and start swinging. This action perfectly describes what compassion is not.
see what we do. Seeing without reacting leads to accepting. This is why recognition is followed by acceptance in our practice directives. Rather than reacting to things we see about ourselves, meditation offers us the space to accept them. When we have the space to accept ourselves, we have the space to accept others. And that space with others, or circumstances in our life, allows us the opportunity to respond in ways that may be helpful, rather than harmful.
We don’t need grand gestures to be compassionate. We just need to be friendly enough with ourselves that our friendliness extends naturally to others. This will increase the possibility of goodness in our life. And it will allow us to see the goodness that we already have. In this crazy dangerous world, there is still much love. As compassion is a natural quality of the universe, it is always there for us. When we have the humble openness to accept ourselves and accept love, we are able to love others even when threatened. With loving acceptance, we come to see that there is only love.
I used to live life driven by expectation. Not just expectation, but outright demand. As you can imagine, I was disappointed much of the time. “It always breaks my heart in two. It happens all the time.”
And this is a beautiful place to begin.
Are we fighting for our survival? We are certainly fighting – but is there anything in this moment actually attacking us but ourselves? So, the first question we ask is: what is actually happening now? Catastrophic thoughts aside, are we actually in danger right now? Or is this fight for survival simply a pattern we’ve learned – an echo of past trauma?