Toss aside your map of the world,
All your beliefs and constructs.
Dance the wild unknown.
Here in this terrifying freedom,
Naked before the universe,
Commune with the One
Who knows everything from the inside:
Invisible power pervading everywhere.
Divine presence permeating everything.
Breathe tenderly as
The lover of all beings.
From The Radiance Sutras
The definition of devote is to “give all or a large part of one's time or resources to (a person, activity, or cause).” To devote this day to love means just that. As the churn of the world fills your mind and emotional body with the chaos of the dance of duality, you focus on the single point on the edge of everything. The place where there are no sides, no winners and losers. No preferences.
For me, that point is Love. I choose Love, no matter what happens.
Today, taking out the trash, washing the dishes, meeting with clients, turning on the news at lunch to catch a glimpse of what is happening, sighing and praying…..texting to family and friends…..I devote this day to love.
When it comes to this notion of preferences, in Buddhism, a quality of upekkha or equanimity, is emphasized, which not only encompasses the individual non-preference for good or bad, fame or shame, rich or poor, but leads to a mind and heart of infinite capacity. Non-preference is not callous indifference to the suffering of the world but rather, supports a profound vastness which explains the nature of things-as-they-are, not as we desire. All phenomenal existence is held to be a play akin to a dream, all things in the dream, ephemeral, and thus of little ultimate consequence.
At the same time, the happiness of everyone matters greatly.
It’s not that I don’t have a HUGE preference as to how this election turns out. I do. I simply hold it in the light of Love, because that is the best thing I can possibly do.
The Dali Lama says it well: “it is essentially logical for us to train in cultivating an impartial attitude wishing for the happiness of all beings.”
That is, our impartiality should extend past our comfort zones of self, family, race, country, and outward to the highest expression of Love.
There is a teaching in Buddhism called The Four Immeasurables:
Immeasurable love
Immeasurable compassion
Immeasurable joy
Immeasurable equanimity
How can we possibly have all those immeasurables if our preferred candidate does not win? How do we respond to what happens?
By allowing grief, anger, joy, fear….all to arise, and to see them for what they are—the Divine presence permeating everything.
Devote yourself to Love, no matter what. Then you will be beyond winning and losing, here in this terrifying freedom where we all live.
The Four Immeasurables as a Traditional Tibetan Buddhist Prayer:
May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they remain in the boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.
