Dear friends,
It's good to be able to share these few minutes of reflection together.
And in this meditation we are going to reflect on looking through eyes of compassion.
So for these few moments just let things be.
Close our eyes,
Drop the shoulders and let us have sink back into the chair for this one minute pause before we begin.
Open your eyes and let them sink back to seat higher.
Welcome back.
A question for you today.
How are you doing just now?
In your body?
In your mind?
Are you feeling okay?
Is life good?
If it is,
Take time to notice how good it is just now and generate a sense of gratitude.
Don't forget to remember the good times if ever you hit a bad patch.
And maybe life is not so good right now.
Something troubling you?
If so,
Just notice that at this moment this is the reality.
But the great thing is,
Everything changes.
And this too will change.
You've felt good before.
Maybe even yesterday.
Be absolutely sure that this too will pass.
Everything changes.
So will this.
You will feel better before long.
Our opening quote today comes from Linda Thompson.
Our uniqueness,
Our individuality and our life experience moulds us into fascinating beings.
I hope we can embrace that.
She goes on,
I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts.
To cultivate an atmosphere of understanding,
Acceptance,
Tolerance and compassion.
We are all in this life together.
Words of Linda Thompson.
Let's take another one minute pause.
Let's take another one minute pause.
Welcome back.
I was sitting in my meditation chair a little while ago and looking out the window.
I just thought I'd sit for a while and offer thoughts of loving kindness to anyone who passed by.
You know the usual mantra,
May this person be well.
May they be happy.
May they be free from suffering.
The same people go by here most mornings.
And it made me think of how we might practise the idea of looking at the people around us with eyes of compassion.
Often I think we look upon people we know not so much from their own perspective as from the perspective of how they relate to us or how they impact upon ourselves.
They might be people we get on with very well.
We can be sure that some of them are people who get under our skin at times.
And in terms of relationships and hierarchies,
We may find ourselves under the charge of people or they might be under our charge in work or whatever.
But the predominant feeling as we meet up is inclined to be how does this person impact upon me.
Most of the time I for one have to admit that I do not look upon the other person with really open eyes of compassion.
In normal circumstances I don't try to imagine them as if I was standing in their shoes.
Now it's not as if I'm not interested in them or they in me.
It's just a case of they getting on with their lives and me getting on with mine.
Peaceful coexistence and cooperation of sorts,
But not thinking too much about it.
You know how it goes.
Of course if someone is in trouble,
Friend or not,
Any of us,
All of us will put on the compassion spectacles and we will do whatever we can to help.
This is a great quality of our shared humanity.
This tendency to help one another demonstrates that we are part of a community and we care for one another.
Just think of the bravery of people,
Strangers even,
Going to rescue people from fire or from the sea.
Any of us old enough to remember 9-11 will think of the firefighters unquestioningly entering those terrifying infernos,
Each 110 stories,
Racing up stairwells while laden down with equipment,
Their only thought to save people's lives.
And anyone who lived through that time will remember the photograph of Father Michael Judge,
The first certified victim of 9-11 as he was carried out dust covered through the rubble.
Father Judge was an American Franciscan friar,
A Catholic priest who served as a chaplain in the New York City Fire Department.
One of his own prayers was this,
Composed by himself.
Lord,
Take me where you want me to go.
Let me meet who you want me to meet.
Tell me what you want me to say.
And keep me out of your way.
Father Michael Judge,
One of the many heroes of 9-11.
Let's have another pause,
One minute to give thanks for the many heroes that inspire us by their example.
Welcome back.
Now most of us live in busy cities and for reasons of survival,
And since our capacity for close friendship is limited,
We have to ignore 99.
9% of the people we come across in any given day.
How could we survive otherwise?
But each one of these people,
Every single one,
Has a story.
Some have a story still to be written.
Some a story almost complete.
Each one deserves to be looked at with eyes of compassion.
You see a young person go by,
School back on back,
A whole life ahead of them,
Full of hope,
Learning something new every day.
Will that young life turn out to be long or short?
Happy or troubled?
Will this person turn out to be a Martin Luther King or someone whose life represents trouble for everyone around?
Only time will tell.
When you see a young person of colour here in Europe or in America,
And when you look with eyes of compassion,
Can you see or feel the challenge this person may face in a society that still has to learn that all people are equal?
The tragedy of how even in 2020-2021 some people fear difference to the point of insult and injury.
And this is not only a case of white notions of superiority.
This is an issue in reverse for young people,
Young white people growing up somewhere in Africa.
What do we have to do and how long do we have to wait before we all learn to celebrate difference rather than fear it?
And next an older person goes by,
Walking more feebly,
Years of experience and wisdom behind them.
Someone who might be written off as out of touch,
Belonging to the past,
No longer an economic asset,
Taking up space in an already overburdened health service.
But remember,
The bend on that person's back might be evidence of long years of hard work,
Long years of contributing to society,
Taking care of the young,
Paying taxes.
In the weighing scales of life,
How do you value the energy of the young against the life experience of the old?
Can you use the same measure to compare both?
How do you measure the hopes of the young against the resilience of the old?
The answer is,
There is no way to compare.
Everyone is different.
Everyone faces the challenges and the opportunities that every day brings.
Everyone benefits from being looked at with eyes of compassion.
When we see a young person,
We can look forward in hope to a happy life for them,
But remembering that day two will be stooped some day.
And when we see the old,
We can look back and hope that theirs was a happy life.
Can we try to imagine a day long ago when they were fit and sprightly,
With life stretching out endlessly before them?
As we go along,
We learn the fact that the wheels of life turn very quickly.
William Shakespeare captures that movement in his sonnet number 60.
Like as the waves make towards the pebble shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequined tile,
All forwards to contend.
And the sonnet ends,
And time that gave doth now his gift confound.
So in this fleeting life,
We can all benefit from a regular dose of compassion.
Now I'm not suggesting that we all make a resolution to go about this idea of distributing compassion as liberally as confetti at a wedding,
Before confetti was banned that is.
If we did,
We'd look like the pope going around in his pope mobile,
Blessing everyone in sight.
And I imagine even the Holy Father has to take a break from that.
But maybe once a month,
Maybe even once a week,
We could take ourselves off in a mindful mood.
We could sit in a car,
Sit upstairs in a double decker bus,
Sit ourselves down on a park bench,
And spend just one hour noticing the people who pass by,
And silently using the mantra,
May they be well.
May they be happy.
May they be free from suffering.
Think of the people passing.
Try to imagine what it might be like to live in their shoes.
Some of the passers-by may not have decent shoes.
Where have they come from?
Can we imagine their hopes,
Their needs,
Their fears?
Imagine their dreams.
And what about the broken parts of their lives,
Or their bodies,
Or the broken parts of their history?
We all have broken pieces,
Seen or unseen.
I'm not suggesting that this is a valley of tears,
A misery to be endured.
It's anything but.
And thankfully for most of us,
Most of the time,
Life is fun and games and we're happy to be alive.
But the Buddha,
In the Four Noble Truths,
Reminds us of the fact of suffering.
He reminds us that suffering is part and parcel of this life.
It's not that every day is a pain,
But the fact is that even in the happiest of lives,
We have the knowledge that this too will come to an end.
This too will pass.
And the non-acceptance of that reality can cause us suffering.
Our wish to hold on to what we have,
To attach ourselves to the fleeting as if it is permanent.
That grasping can cause us pain,
Even though right now we have more than we need,
And maybe even more than we can ever use.
The lesson of the reality of suffering is that all of us are in need of being treated with compassion as we navigate our way through life.
The practice of wishing well to strangers will encourage us to pay more attention to those people who are close to us every day,
The people we are inclined to take for granted,
The people whose love for us is never ever in doubt.
The reward for practicing compassion towards strangers will be that when we meet the everyday people of our lives,
We'll be a little more conscious of the need to treat them with a little more kindness.
We can imagine standing in their shoes for a bit.
And we have to remember too that we must have compassion for people who might look to be confident and holding it all together.
No one knows what might be going inside for them.
It often occurs to me that we don't remember to think with compassion on people we consider to be our leaders and our guides,
The people we look to for inspiration and guidance and motivation.
They too must have their off moments.
But we assume that their energy is endless.
We think of people like the Dalai Lama,
The Pope.
Can we expect them to give and give and give and never receive?
Well,
We receive and receive and never have to give that very much.
So our message for today,
Look upon the people in our lives with eyes of compassion.
Because as Linda Thompson puts it,
Our uniqueness,
Our individuality and our life experience moulds us into fascinating beings.
And as you remember,
She goes on,
I hope we can embrace that.
I pray that we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding,
Acceptance,
Tolerance and compassion.
We are all in this life together.
A closing quote for today is from the book The Grasshopper Chronicles.
This is called One Grateful Rabbit.
Leaving small love notes hidden among the rocks.
Just little hints really.
Look here.
Did you notice that?
Did you see the sunlight through those leaves?
Who will find them?
I don't know.
Not really that important.
Those that need the reminders will find them.
Of this I'm sure.
One hundred years from now,
Beyond the many turnings of the sun,
On the moonlit night,
A flash of white will attract a roving eye.
Fingers will dig under the rocks to find a buried treasure.
Words will jump from the page.
And a searching heart will open,
With tears staining the hand-held page.
Or a grateful rabbit may use the note or make it part of a warm burrow nest.
Either way,
I have done what was required of me.
I have answered the call of my heart.
Words of Rick Terwilliger.
So every day can we spend a few moments keeping one another in mind.
Especially our families and the people we work with.
Thinking of each other with compassion.
Imagining one another's needs,
Hopes and fears.
And that is the message of today's reflection.
Look on people with eyes of compassion.
And now the divine in me bows to the divine in you.
Let's take care of one another.
In the days,
The weeks and the months ahead.
Namaste.
