Change, led by compassion

Wanted to write about compassion. Again. It's changed me so much. 

Blogging has been helping. Keeps me accountable. Reiterating concepts and what works for me helps too!

I kind of slowed down these last few months. I'd love to make this a daily habit again. At the same time, I am ok with it not being that way.Working on being ok with not being perfect. Training on being "ok" with not meeting my "personal deadlines." Training and practicing compassion and forgiveness. 

First toward myself. Always It makes sense. Simple wisdom. Without being able to treat myself kindly and lovingly, how can I expect to be that way toward others? 

How can there be outer peace without inner peace? Only I can control what is going on inside of me. 

Man, its been quite a path. 

I think I learned this from a Dharma teaching based on Buddha's life... something like:

Compassion arises from suffering. Siddhartha lost his mother within a week of being born, that is great loss. He did not know about it either, not until he was an adult. When I think about that loss at such a young and vulnerable age, my heart is pained. Not even a week old, existing as a living being he lost his mother. Buddha is a symbol of compassion. Also love and wisdom. 

My point or realization is just how much we learn from "suffering." How much we grow. How realized we become. 

I haven't had that kind of suffering, but I've had a handful in the last few years. 

*Suffering in Buddhism is not necessarily being burned alive or something like that. That is external, and yes it certainly can be. It is also internal. I like how it is explained here by an article by Sam Littlefair:

The Buddha said, “All I teach is suffering and the end of suffering.” Suffering in his teaching does not necessarily mean grave physical pain, but rather the mental suffering we undergo when our tendency to hold onto pleasure encounters the fleeting nature of life, and our experiences become unsatisfying and ungovernable.

I love this excerpt from Feldman and Kuyken too. It is from Contemporary Buddhism: 

Compassion is a response to suffering, the inevitable adversity all human beings will meet in their lives, whether it is the pain embedded in the fabric of ageing, sickness and death or the psychological and emotional afflictions that debilitate the mind. Compassion is the acknowledgement that not all pain can be 'fixed' or 'solved' but all suffering is made more approachable in a landscape of compassion. 

Compassion is a multi-textured response to pain, sorrow and anguish. It includes kindness, empathy, generosity and acceptance. The strands of courage, tolerance, equanimity are equally woven into the cloth of compassion. Above all compassion is the capacity to open to the reality of suffering and to aspire to its healing. 

Compassion leads toward greater awareness. 

From an article called Loving-kindness and Compassion Meditation: Potential for Psychological Interventions that was in Clinical Psychology Review by Hoffman, Grossman, and Hinton:

One is to see compassion as the outcome of a path that can be cultivated and developed. You do not in reality cultivate compassion, but you can cultivate, through investigation, the qualities that incline your heart toward compassion. You can learn to attend to the moments when you close and contract in the face of suffering, anger, fear, or alienation. In those moments you are asked to question what difference empathy, forgiveness, patience, and tolerance would make. You cultivate your commitment to turn toward your responses of aversion, anger, or intolerance. With mindfulness and investigation, you find in your heart the generosity and understanding that allow you to open rather than close. 

Really enjoyed this resource, and grateful that Stanford Medicine created this center for research. So awesome. 

Been studying and listening a lot to Tara Brach. Here is a bit on her take with practicing self-compassion:

Self-compassion begins to naturally arise in the moments that we recognize we are suffering. It comes into fullness as we intentionally nourish our inner life with self-care. To do this, try to sense what the wounded, frightened or hurting place inside you most needs, and then offer some gesture of active care that might address this need. Does it need a message of reassurance? Of forgiveness? Of companionship? Of love? Experiment and see which intentional gesture of kindness most helps to comfort, soften or open your heart. It might be the mental whisper,  

I'm here with you. I'm sorry, and I love you. I love you, and I'm listening. It's not your fault. Trust in your goodness.  

In addition to a whispered message of care, many people find healing by gently place a hand on the heart or cheek; or by envisioning being bathed in or embraced by warm, radiant light. It if feels difficult to offer yourself love, bring to mind a loving being - spiritual figure, family member, friend or pet - and imagine that being's love and wisdom flowing into you.
When the intention to awaken self-compassion is sincere, the smallest gesture of turning towards love, of offering love - even if initially it feels awkward - will nourish your heart. 

Grateful for so many sources and reminders about how to take care of ourselves. 

With proper self-care I can fully love, give, and provide for others. That is my true intention. 

Namaste.