Good morning,
Good afternoon,
Good evening.
Can you hear me okay Linda,
Will you?
So I thought we'd start off with a loving kindness and well start with a poem,
Then we'll do about 10 minutes of loving kindness,
Then we'll just sit for the last 10 minutes or so.
So let's take a few moments to settle,
Just let things quieten down.
We're just settling if you've just joined us.
Okay I'm just going to read a poem first.
Before you know what kindness really is,
You must lose things.
Feel the future dissolve in a moment,
Like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
What you counted and carefully saved,
All this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and rides thinking the bus will never stop,
The passengers eating cheese sandwiches will stay out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
You must travel where the homeless person in rags lies dead,
By the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
How he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
You must also know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow,
You must speak to it till your voice catches a thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
Only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread.
Only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for,
Then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
That's by Naomi Shahib Nye.
Don't ask me to repeat it,
I have to look it.
So let's just settle.
Only kindness that ties your shoelaces.
What a great phrase,
What a great image.
So dropping into your heart center,
Just resting there for a few moments.
Maybe imagining a reassuring pair of hands resting on your shoulders.
Let it be,
If it works for you.
Then we have a sense of ourself,
Our life,
What's going on.
If there's anything troubling us,
Physically or a life issue,
Bring it in,
Bring it into the heart.
And just hold whatever may be troubling you in the heart.
Maybe it needs a little reassurance.
The heart doesn't judge,
Doesn't try to change anything,
Doesn't push anything away.
Maybe a wish you can drop in a phrase,
Something like,
May I be well,
May I be happy.
And just stay there.
May I find peace and contentment.
And into this heart space,
Go and invite a good friend.
Give a sense of their troubles.
Perhaps you want to make a gesture of goodwill,
A friendship.
May you be well,
May you be happy.
Don't force anything.
Just relax.
It's easy to get tense with this practice.
May you be free from pain and suffering.
And so is ourself and our good friend.
Let's welcome a neutral person,
Maybe a nebby you don't know so well,
Somebody at work,
Shopkeeper.
See what happens.
Maybe put a hand on their shoulder to make a gesture.
If you wish.
They just want to be happy.
Just want to exist.
It's the joy to be Ananda.
Just like we do.
Every creature just wants to be.
Then wish them well.
May you be free from pain and suffering.
So we have the neutral person,
The good friend,
Ourself.
In essence,
We're all the same.
We all just want to be here,
Happy,
At ease.
Just have a sense of your community.
All the little animals in your community,
The birds in the garden,
The worms.
Just all want to be.
Everything runs from pain.
And may we all be well and happy.
Now we can relax this practice.
Let's just sit quietly.
In what's often called serene reflection in the Zen tradition.
Not going anywhere.
Just like a mirror.
See what appears in front of the mirror.
The mirror doesn't react.
Mirror doesn't push certain things away or grasp after other things.
Can we be a little mirror-like,
Serene?
Don't listen to the mind.
Listen to life.
The mirror grasps onto nothing.
What appears isn't the problem.
It's the grasping and the pushing away.
Okay.
Thank you,
Guys.
Bye-bye.
