Today is the last day of our retreat together! It has been such a pleasure to feel your presence with us as we work toward cultivating greater compassion. What caught your attention? What did you connect to? What practices will you integrate into your every-day, as ways to stay connected with our big, open, kind hearts?
Here is a quick review of the last 9 days:
Day 2: Compassion is Contagious
Day 3: Compassion for Beginners
Day 4: Fierce Self-Love & Compassion
Day 5: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Compassion
Day 7: The Eye Contact Experiment
What a curriculum of compassion! Thank you, my readers, for your perseverance with us over these last nine days. I hope that we have all been able to connect to the significance of our mindset, as it plays out in the world, and that of every small act, and it’s repercussions on ourselves and others. May it all be positive!
The teachings and teachers who have sustained me through this journey of becoming more compassionate, one day at a time, are my root Guru Lama Thupten Rinpoche, Lama Tsultrim Allione, Ani Pema Chodron, Jack Kornfield, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Mohandas Gandhi, Thomas Merton, Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, Rumi, Shiva Rea, C.E. Schultz, and Aditi Devi Ma. To them I offer everything that is good and wholesome in the world, to their spirits and to their teachings that they may endure for eons and benefit countless beings, hundreds of blossoming flowers, softly burning candles, delicious food, clean water and air, and the blessings of all the ancestors of all the wisdom traditions in all the world. I bow humbly to their enlightened example.
For all the merit that we have accumulated during our nine day retreat, as we focused on actively sowing the seeds of virtue that relieves suffering, may even the good karma be given away without retaining a drop of merit for ourselves, so that all beings may benefit from even our humblest of intentions – especially may the merit be dedicated to our enemies, to those with whom we have difficulties, for those who are suffering and causing suffering, to those for whom I have ever wished harm – may you profit from this small offering, may you fully realize the enlightened state free from suffering.
“May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings without exception abide in perfect equanimity, free from anger, desire and ignorance, and live as shining lamps of loving kindness, generosity, and compassion.”
A Ho. So Mote It Be. Amen. So Ha.
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