Ahimsa

With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Morning and my body do not seem to be in accord today. I am awake before it is time and my head is rebelling with a dull thud. Muscles ache, tendons argue, and coffee feels like medicine rather than the delight that it usually is. Still, the day is here and I am grateful to rise to meet it.
One of the key precepts in contemplative life is ahimsa, do no harm. The precepts themselves seem to flow from this central notion. I would rather understand this practice in its affirmative: I vow to nurture life.
When I do this, precepts such as ‘do not kill’ are recast as “support and nurture life”, and “do not steal” as “”affirm the integrity of others”. When I attempt to live in this way, my aim is to practice living my life as a healer. The tools I possess reside in my heart/mind and are expressed through my body and speech.
Refraining from something is passive. It is far too easy to relax into a sort of quietism I can ill afford as a Bodhisattva. So, today I vow to support and nurture life in each thing I do.

Be well.