Day 8 Practice: Less of Me
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.”
With today’s practice, I ask you to consider how often you are stuck in “the view of me”: my needs, my beliefs, my pain, my heartache, my sorrows, my doubt, my stress, my troubles, and the list goes on and on. On a spiritual path, we are often encouraged to drop the ego which is obviously much easier said than done. But one thing I'm slowly discovering that egolessness has more in common with our capacity for loving kindness towards ourselves and others rather than self-negation.
What is loving kindness? In the simplest sense, it is the wish for friendliness and goodwill. Loving kindness is a quality that arises naturally when we recognize that we are no different than… anyone else. All beings desire the same things (although we may go about getting them differently). We all want to be happy, safe, and included. We all wish to be seen and heard, and to feel a sense of belonging. And to recognize this, our shared humanity, is to begin to loosen the grip of ego. We may even come to discover that what I give you, I give to myself and what you are deprived of is deprivation for me. Your happiness is my happiness. Your suffering can be felt as my own. Instead of releasing of ego, the practice is more the recognition of our shared hearts.
So today, may we practice seeing ourselves more clearly in relationship to others. May we shift our perspective to our interconnectedness: how much we mean to one another, how much we rely on and need each other. Can we clearly see all the influences, causes, and conditions that have brought us here together? It is less about “me” and more about “we”, living into our shared humanity. Remember, insight is simply a shift in perspective. .
“Meditation helps us cultivate a sense of openness so that we become less frozen and less fixed in our sense of self.”
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”
“The great strength of lovingkindness and goodwill is vulnerability, and that vulnerability is what sets the compass of the heart in the direction of connection and belonging.”
“Awe is the absence of self-preoccupation.”
“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
“The world breaks us all, and afterwards some are stronger in those broken places.”
“When wishes are few, the heart is happy. When craving ends, there is peace.”