Kindness Practice

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,

It is a beautiful morning here in southern New Mexico. I am always appreciative of the sun's light and our deep blue skies. On the way home from Memphis Tuesday I noticed I was beginning to feel under the weather, yesterday a full blown cold emerged and today I feel a bit cloudy with the symptomatic treatments of aspirin and benadryl. I'm also taking Zicam and drinking plenty of water. In spite of this I did go to meditation last night at the Temple, though I passed on the Peace Vigil. I am a believer in maintaining a set of habits, a daily regimen, if you will, and allow limited excuses in my own life.

I'm reading a new book out by Jeffrey Hopkins, former translator for the Dalai Lama, entitled, "A Truthful Heart: Buddhist practices for connecting with others" and in it he says one one year or so of the Dalai Lama's teaching tour, the Dalai Lama's message was a simple and clear one, "Everyone wants happiness and doesn't want suffering." At first a very simple statement, almost a platitude, yet, when we think about it, there is much in these words to give us pause regarding our own behavior.

On one level he is saying we are all the same, everyone wants happiness, no one wants to suffer. Yet, in order to be happy and not suffer, we typically seem to expect others to be in service to our happiness and not support our suffering.

I know I want My Little Honey to pay attention to me, my moods, my abilities or lack of abilities, expecting her to make my life easier by not making me suffer. What does this do for her happiness, her lack of suffering?

If I truly behaved according to the principle, "Everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering" I would see her as I see myself and treat her in ways that reduce her suffering. So, you see, it depends on your starting point. If we begin with the practice of reducing suffering and increasing happiness for others as the method of reducing our own suffering and increasing our own happiness, everyone is happy. But if we begin with "how can someone else make me happy and reduce my suffering" we are focusing our attention on ourselves, our feelings become the barometer of social happiness.

The Dalai Lama made a brilliant statement to Dr. Hopkins one day, he said, "Society is kindness". By this he meant to actually equate kindness with the possibility and actuality of society. While teaching sociology I often made a similar statement that we should treat all people as kin, that is, with familial kindness. When we do this, everyone is our brother and sister, everyone springs from the same place, breathes the same air, wants the very same basic things: happiness and freedom from suffering.

As we practice our Zen, the clarity of such things becomes real. When we practice to let open the hand of thought, nothing attaches and we can be present, really present for others. As we are present for others, we are deeply present for ourselves.

We are One.

Be well.