Day #40

Today’s favourite poses: Tree, Dancing Warrior, TREE!

Minutes with a relatively quiet mind: 5 (ish) ....Something VERY weird is happening with my laptop. Seems like a Malware issue.........must - call - computer - nerd.

Today’s interesting/thought provoking reading: From the Dalai Lama himself (again)


….By nature we are compassionate, and compassion is something very necessary and something which we can develop. It is important to know the exact meaning of compassion. The Buddhist interpretation is that genuine compassion is based on a clear acceptance or recognition that others, like oneself, want happiness and have the right to overcome suffering. On that basis one develops some kind of concern about the welfare of others, irrespective of their attitude to oneself. That is compassion.

Your love and compassion towards your friends is, in many cases, actually attachment. This feeling is not based on the realization that all beings have an equal right to be happy and to overcome suffering. Instead, it is based on the idea that something is ‘mine’, ‘my friend’, or something good for ‘me’. That is attachment. Thus, when the person’s attitude towards you changes, your feeling of closeness immediately disappears. With the other way, you develop some kind of concern irrespective, of the other person’s attitude to you, simply because that person is a fellow human being and has every right to overcome suffering. Whether that person remains neutral to you or even becomes your enemy, your concern should remain.

Actually genuine compassion and attachment are contradictory. According to Buddhist practice, to develop genuine compassion you must first practice the meditation of equalization and equanimity, detaching oneself from those people who are very close to you. Then, you must remove negative feelings towards your enemies. All sentient beings should be looked on as equal. On that basis, you can gradually develop compassion for all of them.

It must be said that genuine compassion is not like pity or a feeling that others are somehow lower than you. Rather, with genuine compassion you view others as more important than yourself…………..[sound familiar???!] ;)