ALLOWING PAIN IN

“I am becoming water; I let everything rinse its grief in me and reflect as much light as I can.”

~ Anonymous

Another paradox I continually struggle with is how to let others in without becoming them. How to open the door of compassion without the things and people we feel for overpowering us.

It goes as far back as Jesus and Buddha, and the miracle of such spirits is that they show us that there is some basic clear element in each of us, like water, which can’t glow without a name, which can allow the pain and grief of others in without turning us into just pain and grief.

Many traditions speak to this. We call it love when we do this for another and compassion when we hold this intention for all living things. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition has a meditation practice called tong-len that asks us to breathe in the suffering of the world, to hold it in that unbreakable place of compassion, and to then breathe back light.

The beauty of such a practice is that it assumes and affirms that there is something timeless and indestructible within each of us that can heal us and the world if we can just open ourselves to it.

~ Sit quietly until you feel centred.

~ Breathe steadily, and bring to mind and heart the pain of someone dear to you.

~ Breathe deeply, inhaling their pan to that centre of compassion we all carry.

~ When you feel their pain, you have transformed some part of it.

~ Now exhale light.

The Book of Awakening

~ Mark Nepo