“Don't be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous.”Hazrat Inayat Khan
I find myself writing about this topic of the pain of the world again. Maybe it’s because we have never as a collective been exposed so intimately to so much heartache and suffering in the world. It’s been going on since forever, and now we are all a part of it…all of it.
I do not by any means intend to say that we should not feel the pain. Oh no. In the past 10 days I cried my heart out about the beautiful people in that church in Charleston. I cried about the kids at the waterpark in Taiwan, and about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He was an innocent little boy once.
Watching CNN last night, within 10 minutes I saw the UNICEF ad for starving children, and the ASCPA ad for starving and beaten dogs. My friend turns the sound down when those ads come on. I was looking into my dog Sophie’s soulful brown eyes and looking up at the sad sad eyes of the dogs in cages on the screen.
What was I to do? Was it right to feel happy or sad in that moment? They say the wolf you feed is the one that lives. Must I choose?
What I realized is that I felt both happy and sad at the same time. In fact I noticed that I felt angry that the dogs were abused. I stopped and noticed that—-sad, happy, angry—- and made room inside to feel it all. I didn’t push the feelings away, and as I looked again into Sophie’s eyes, the feelings transformed into gratitude.
The light of your own awareness has the power to transform all feelings into a grateful heart.
I breathed, smiled, and sent love to those animals. I also sent money to the ASPCA.
What are we to do? How do we not shut down when so many emotions compete for our attention, mostly below awareness, until we either fall apart, numb out, or explode? This simple act of stopping, tuning in, and being with, (without judgment) changes everything.
It is called compassion in action.
Compassion: to suffer with.
Then bring in the joy! In the beautiful meditation practice of tonglen,which the ever so human spiritual teacher, Pema Chödrön teaches, you to cultivate love and compassion by bringing in the desired emotion or state of being.
You can do it with anything.
May all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be happy. May all beings realize the joy of their own true nature, which is love.
