Behold the Stars

There is a beautiful practice called loving-kindness. It is a marvelous way to increase your awareness of and compassion for those around you. It will transform how you look at your life, as well.

The essential practice is to wish peace and happiness for yourself. Then you do the same for those you love, those about whom you’re ambivalent, and finally, those whom, for some reason or other, you can’t stand. We do this for individuals, but we can also do this for groups or categories of people (say, political groups).

In the basic practice, you recite a short script for each of the people on your list. One classic script is this:

May you be free from danger.
May you have mental happiness.
May you find physical happiness.
May you have ease of well being

You recite this text for each person, focusing wholly on one person or group while sincerely wishing them well. It will get harder (but better for you) as you move away from yourself and those you love to those you dislike. The scripts may not work for you. They are are too hokey for many people. This is no problem. Simply make up a way to wish everyone well in whatever way works for you.

For those of you who are brave, there is a more advanced technique, a more difficult practice called taking and giving. In taking and giving, we go through same process, but this time our wish is to give that person all our joy and happiness and take on all their pain and sorrow.

This is not an easy practice. To unconditionally wish someone you hate peace and happiness will be very difficult at first. Something inside you will rebel against the process, so you will have to do it many times before it sinks in. Stay with it for a few weeks, and you’ll be glad you did.

I tried this practice during my Dark Period. Each day I would take an early morning five-mile walk around Town Lake in downtown Austin. As I walked I would practice loving-kindness for those in my life — especially for those whom I resented or by whom I felt betrayed. As time went on, I began to “give” all my happiness to each person I passed along the way and to “take” on all their pain and sorrow. I did it for about eight weeks. Two surprising things happened to me. First, I felt much better and less resentful of many in my life. I began to let things go and to lighten up. Second, I found that I was less frightened of people.

This second response was made clear to me one day as I approached an empty bus stop. At the stop was a young man with the demeanor of a criminal, perhaps a gang member. As I passed by I felt slightly threatened, even though the young man had done nothing more than stand and dress a certain way. I began to think about his life and all the things that could possibly create suffering for him right now. I thought about all the things that would make a person feel so strongly the need to rebel. I also began to take on all his pain and give him my happiness. By the time I had walked by him, I no longer felt frightened. All my unease, it turned out, was all created in my head. It was quite an experience.

If you’re going through tough times, especially with other people, or if you find yourself tense or angry because of the actions of one group or another, I urge you to give this a try. It can help you see things from a completely different, less self-centered perspective. It will lighten your load.

Make a great day.

Photo: jam343
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