How do we stay present to the suffering around and within us and not lose heart? This time needs us – the world needs us. As we navigate the many unknowns in this time of pandemic and experience the world around us grasping for assurance and stability (often through blame and judgment) it can be difficult to stay connected to our hearts. This week Ginny focused our time on cultivating the practice of Lovingkindness or Metta, offering ourselves, our loved ones, difficult people and the whole earth tenderness and care.
The talk we heard was “Directional Metta Practice with Jesse Maceo Vega Frey” from a Vipassana Retreat at IMS and is available here:
https://dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/337/34426.html
Here are some quotes that Ginny included:
Whatever you intend, whatever you plan, and whatever you have a tendency toward, that will become the basis upon which your mind is established.
(SN 12.40)
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.
The Buddha; From Lovingkindness – Salzberg p. 6
Now is the time to know
Now is the time – Hafiz
That all that you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God.
Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love.
Hafiz is a divine envoy
Whom the Beloved
Has written a holy message upon.
My dear, please tell me,
Why do you still
Throw sticks at your heart
And God?
What is it in that sweet voice inside
That incites you to fear?
Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.
Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred.
Burlington Buddhist Sangha 