An Antidote to These Challenging and Stressful Times

Are you challenged with feelings of overwhelm and stress? Do you sometimes struggle with anxiety and/or depression? Do you simply want to have greater feelings of peace, happiness and well being? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then please read on…. 

I want to share with you a simple, timeless, yet very powerful practice.  When experienced daily it will foster lovingkindness through compassion, thus improving the quality of your life and the lives of others around you.

I encourage you to consider making THE PRACTICE OF COMPASSION part of your daily life. I believe that this focus is more relevant and needed than ever before.

The Practice of Compassion
His Holiness The Dalai Lama

This practice was shared with me by a friend when she returned from India in 2000. While in India, her group met with the Dalai Lama for several days. The meetings focused on what they believed were the five most important questions to be considered moving into the new millennium.

The group was asked to come up with five questions before meeting with the Dalai Lama. They asked:

  1. How do you address the widening gap between rich and poor?
  2. How do we protect the earth?
  3. How do we educate our children?
  4. How do we help Tibet and other oppressed countries/peoples?
  5. How do we bring spirituality – deep caring for each other – through all disciplines?

 

His answer was simple, profound and true. The Dalai Lama said, “All the questions fall under the last one. If we have true compassion, our children will be educated, we will care for the earth, as well as for those who have not.” He asked the group: Do you think love on the planet is increasing or staying the same? His own response was, “My experience leads me to believe that love is increasing.”

He shared a practice with the group that can increase love and compassion in the world, and asked everyone attending to go home and share it with as many people as possible.

The Practice:

  1. Spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each day remembering we all want the same thing—to be happy and loved—and we are all connected.
  2. Spend 5 minutes cherishing yourself and others. Let go of judgments. Breathe in cherishing yourself, and breathe out cherishing others. If the faces of people you are having difficulty with appear, cherish them as well.
  3. During the day, extend that attitude to everyone you meet.
  4. Stay in the practice, no matter what happens.

 

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