Compassion is a very large idea. But in order to make it a practical idea, we can see how it can become right-sized. If we conjure images of Mother Teresa, Gandhi or the Dalai Lama we are likely conjuring something inherently out-sized, that we can never attain. These outsized images are not only unrealisitc, they often serve to make us feel small. We have enough in our lives that make us feel defeated. It is important that we learn to stick up for ourselves. If we are making ourselves weak, we are hurting ourselves and helping no one. Thinking it’s up to us to bring peace on earth sounds good, but in reality, it is quite egotistical.
And yet, the world needs our help.
So, how can we make this large picture practical for us? We can begin by loooking at ourselves, as we are. How can compassion make my life a better place? What can I do today to make my life easier and more productive so that I may better serve? This is not selfish, it’s practical. However, trying to make my life better than someone else’s, or a better place for only me and mine, is selfish because it’s narrow minded and myopic. Compassion is developing the tools to care for ourselves so that we can care for other beings. But, we are one of those beings. In fact, until we learn to effectively care for ourselves we will be unable to care for others.
Remember the old trope of the oxygen mask? On board a distressed plane we are instructed to place our own oxygen mask on first before we help our children. This is not selfish, it is practical. From a spiritual point of view, when our life is in distress, it is not selfish to care for yourself. However, it is important to care in helpful and appropriate ways. On a plane in distress we don’t finish our drink first before we help anyone else. Unfortunately, in life, when we are in distress we often similarly grasp for remedies that do not help anyone. We are falling and grabbing at suitcases that only add more weight. There is a difference between helping ourselves to relief and isolation, and helping ourselves so that we can connect to others. This is very important.
Caring for our “inner child” is important in developing the self compassion that lies as the foundation for compassion. Yet is every time our inner child is frightened, we retreat to the bath we are only supporting the bubble bath companies. Our inner-child needs leadership and good parenting. Compassion is developing trust in our executive functioning so we can help ourselves appropriately. Laying in the bath can be a helpful act of self care. But doing this every time we are triggered means we need to care for ourselves in ways that build our resilience. Restoring ourselves is important, but refusing to move on to action only builds insecurity. For compassion to be practical it has to be a living part of our life. Living compassion serves to build our life. It is practical and grounded in humble acceptance. Yet, its possibilities are vast. If we avoid defensive self-centeredness, we can raise our gaze and see that we have a world bigger than we ever thought possible.
If we are grasping to an idea or a concept that is self-aggrandizing, we are adding pressures that are self-defeating. But with humble acceptance of who we are right now we can develop the faith in ourselves to move mountains. Developing a healthy self-regard is not egotism. It is securing the base from which we are able to be of real value to our world. There is nothing, in my experience, more rewarding than genuinely helping someone. And there is nothing, in my experience, more debilitating than grasping for someone’s approval. Faith in ourselves is the proverbial faith of the mustard seed. We are only the size we are. And that is all we need to be to move mountains of doubt.
Self-aggrandizement is natural. But it is limiting because we are clinging to something that is not real. We are building concepts of what we think we should be, rather than discovering who we are. If we imagine ourselves as more than we are, we will always be disappointed. THe same is true of believing we are less-than. The false humility of flogging ourselves for imperfections we perceive is just thinly disguised egotism. “Masochistic narcissism” is when we beat ourselves up over the pain we feel, or that we think others are feeling. We are not helping them by pulling our hair out. We are making ourselves feel important, by making our pain important. “Look at me, my compassion is such that I am crying for the world” is very dramatic. But it is not helping anyone.
Yet, if we accept that we are a work-in-progress then we can learn to gain confidence in ourselves. Self-aggrandizement, like the arrogance it engenders, covers leads to a lack of belief in ourselves. We know inside that we are not the ideal, and so believe we are less than the ideal. But that truth is if we can accept ourselves and vow to discover what we become, we are committing to a path of supporting ourselves. As we develop self-awareness, we naturally gain regard for ourselves. And though this regard for ourselves we begin to see others more clearly. Freed of the veils of defensive self interest we begin to see that we are not as estranged from our world as we had imagined.
By protecting our heart, we are seeing ourselves and learning to see others as family.
Our friend and co-teacher Sarah reminded me today that we are not material beings in a spiritual world, but spiritual beings in a material world. Similarly, we are not selfish beings trying to find compassion. We are compassion itself, working to heal a selfish world. The next time we think we can’t do it, it may be good to know realize that we already are.
Contacting love in our life is possible if we are free of the turmoil that often occupies our mind. Sometimes this happens accidentally, as when something startles us and stops our mind. Sometimes it happens when our mind naturally notices a flower or bird that opens our mind. 
Compassion is natural to all life. But so is danger. Much of life does what it can to sustain itself and focuses its cellular attention on living, growing and providing, serene in its unknowing. Most life is a natural and necessary part of the dance of the planet. But, the greatest danger to the balance of life comes from the only part of the planet that sees itself. The one who’s acidic stomach is gurgling as it watches the rabbit hop merrily into the wooded shadows. The greatest danger lies within. This is as true of ourselves and our societies. This is the greatest danger because it is the one unseen. We are so attuned to the danger around us, we lie in vulnerable ignorance of the aggression we cause ourselves and others. It is the work of compassion practice to help us reprogram the mind to balance the openness of loving moments with the truth of the dangers in life. We do this by de-emphasizing the importance of ourselves to ourselves that is clouding the picture. THis is not to say that we are not important. We are just not as important enough to suck the air out of life. Humans are a little like drunken blowhards going on about their workout routine at a party. SIr Harold Pinter wrote a play called “The Party” in which a group of haute society people revelled in their intrigues and drama while occasionally, we have seemingly inconsequential references to turmoil in the streets. By play’s end it is clear the turmoil is a violent revolution that will end everything they know.
Over 
direction is too loose. Sometimes we rail against the authority of form, and this stops the flow, but it may be necessary to reboot the process or add freshness to a routine. But once we reboot, finding the groove and waking up in the rhythm of life. Navigating between the extremes of too tight and too loose we find the balance point for optimal creativity in life. A dancer needs discipline, but the point of the discipline is to let go into the piece. No one wants to see anyone work. We want to see them dance. We want the fruit of their labor. So, form need never be seen. The hand of the director should never be seen. The dance should feel as natural as the river.
This post will introduce the idea of slowing down in order to establish or reestablish a flow that allows us to move more efficiently. Here we will use the analogy of the cat, relaxing in repose, so that it has the energy and calm to spring into action. We are talking about how to maintain synchronicity so that our flow is strong and even. This requires an aware meditation of our energy. If we move too quickly for our present circumstances, we lose connection to synchronicity. Such as when we’re moving so quickly, we fail to see where we are going. In the Tibetan Buddhist tradition it is said that speeding through life is an essential disregard for our humanity. Our personal dignity becomes subsumed by anxiety as we scurry like a hamster. The goal becomes more important than the journey. But, it is said, the journey is the goal. How we approach life is as important as anything else in life. Meditating our speed allows us to move with grace and dignity. It also allows us to move more efficiently. Sometimes we need to slow down in order to get things done. On the other hand, sometimes we need to encourage ourselves to move more quickly in order to maintain our energy. Sometimes we need encouragement to move at all.
the “Samatha” level of our meditation training. Samatha means peace, or cultivating peace in its active rendering. In Tibetan Buddism it is taught as a 9 stage process of progressive settling. These Tantric systems of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism endeavor to connect mind and body. Progressive settling in to the present is not just “being in the now” in a conceptal sense. But settling into ourselves as the working basis of our path toward full awakening. Yet “path” implies movement. All things, even when apparently still, are in motion. All things are in dynamic interaction with all else. Settling into that movement with unhurried elegance is “entering the stream”.
Awareness of our breathing is the perfect tool for maintaining the meditative flow state. Breathing is the intimate rhythm of our life. It describes a through line of our life from moments after birth to our last moments. Returning to the breath is a way of maintaining our meditative awareness on the cushion, but this process can be effectively carried over into our daily life. We can use awareness of our breathing to relax the nervous system and allow the mind to let go back into a natural flow. Breathing can guide us through turbulent waters. When in doubt, breathe your way through. Allow yourself to settle and then let go. Letting go INTO the flow is not running away from anything. It’s allowing yourself to move past it with minimal engagement. How many issues in life simply do not need the attention we give them. I worked with a shaman who told me my work was not to be anything or to accumulate things, but to learn from everything. Appreciation means not grabbing, but seeing clearly the value of something. We lose perspective when we grab things. We objectify them and interrupt the flow. When we appreciate someone, we have the distance to see them as they are. And if our desire or anger or need causes us to get stuck we have the tools of recognition and return. We see that we are stuck. We feel our stomach tightening, our mind scripting imaginary narratives, our heart aching for something that isn’t here. Then we know we are stuck in the past or the future. The present is a flow state. So when we are stuck, we recognize that and return to the flow of our breath. The breath will guide us back to the flow of now.
With meditation practice we are training to notice subtler and more ordinary moments that stop the mind. And perhaps more importantly, we learn to accept these authentic moments, as they are, without commentary for longer periods of time. This serves to infiltrate the wall of separation that we fabricate to keep ourselves isolated from life. You might say, we are turning the lights on to our life. If our mind is supple enough, we can see all life as alive and interactive. In time, we see ourselves as a part of everything rather than struggling to overcome anything. In popular culture, this is known as being one with everything. In Meditation traditions this is known as non-dual experience. Nondual experiences are instances of clear perception when we are directly connected to the moment as opposed to dualistic experiences when we are separated out and looking in.
In conventional life, we assume we should push harder. And when that doesn’t work, we assign blame, usually to ourselves. I’m lazy. I’m useless. What’s wrong with me? We might take on the role of a frustrated parent yelling outside the door, “GET UP!” or a sports coach urging,. “Get past this and move it, you baby.” But if we actually were a baby, no one would speak to us that way. In fact, we might find it cute when a toddler in their terrible twos holds their breath. And while some foxhole instances require tough love or aggression to provide the motivation we lack in most cases this is an overplayed lazy option. It is not a recommended approach to guiding a child toward self-sufficiency, nor developing a meditation practice that includes our full being. You see, we so-called adults have grown beyond the children we once were, but the children have nonetheless remained. We can take the approach of ignoring our child, as many of our parents did. And as we grew, some of us learned to ignore the pleading of what the Indigo Girls referred to as our “Kid Fears”. Unfortunately, this approach met with enough success that “grin and bear it” became the order of the day and some pushed through until the seed of doubt grew into a boulder we could not lift.
Developing a strong meditation practice is one of the cases for which kindness is an essential method. Some of us learn this in meditation and the approach begins to bleed into other aspects of our life. In my opinion, this is the most important result of a consistent and authentic meditation practice. But, as wonderful as this sounds, some days we just can’t make that long journey from bed to the cushion. Yet, pushing ourselves in the way we do everything else, sets us off on the wrong tact. We are at the mercy of ego or self-will. It is the wrong view, because we are somehow believing there is something we can get from the meditation that requires struggle. The adage “nothing good comes without struggle” is not apt in developing an authentic practice free of aggression. So, when experience resistance to our practice it makes a certain sense. We are deconstructing the fortress of ego. We feel exposed and fearful. Sometimes we may need to halt the process and allow the fear to catch up with us. And kindness and patience are the remedies. When we have the patience to meet resistance with kindness in meditation practice, we have an opportunity to see its effectiveness. As we develop faith in love as a remedy we become kinder and more patient with ourselves. As we become kinder and more patient with ourselves, we naturally become more caring of others.
and is ready to step forward. In this way, we our full mind can develop natural assertion and confidence just like a child learning to walk back to their room. Just like flowers blooming in spring. The seed has no idea of the flower it will become as it is too busy pushing up through the darkness. This is not easy, but the plant does this without struggle. It rises because it is its nature. No one needs to stand above it yelling for it to grow. Along the way, if the ground freezes, the growing stops until the stalk gathers the energy to move again. We can see progress in nature that, while not without challenge, is in synchronicity with nature. The ancient book of wisdom, referred to as the IChing, states that obstacles can be overcome by emulating water. Warrior has the patience to pause until their strength rebuilds and allows them to flow over or around the obstacle. The river never feels insecure or berates itself for this.