Luminalogue

Growing Seeds of Compassion

Recently, I was fortunate to be one of the many thousands of people gathered together in Seattle for Seeds of Compassion with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and other noted speakers.  For five remarkable days, faces beamed, hearts bloomed, and commitments sprouted in response to a simple, yet profound, theme of growing compassion in and for the world.  Like many of the other workshop hosts engaged in this event, I was and am inspired by this collective inquiry into compassion--what it looks like, how it is experienced, how we can embrace it more fully in the context of our day-to-day lives--for ourselves, each other, and our children around the world. 

I am grateful to my co-hosts and to the many volunteers and participants who engaged in the Reflection & Conversation Space, variously offering their stories, curiosity, creativity, and presence throughout the conference.  Here are a few memorable moments of our time together...

A Story of Compassion

I was particularly touched by a story a young woman shared on the final day, reflecting on a comment made earlier that morning by Joan Halifax Roshi.  The woman told us how she has for many years suffered with a broken heart, but that her whole experience shifted as she heard one phrase Joan spoke--that the heart is broken open.  In that moment, her broken-heartedness became open-heartedness, and her love and light shined through as she spoke.  Her story was (and is) a powerful reminder to us all of how deeply our individual perspective influences our experience and how much our different perspectives can teach if we are willing to listen to each other.

Compassion-Inspired Art

" The human hand is so beautifully formed, its actions are so powerful, so free and yet so delicate that there is no thought of its complexity as an instrument; we use it as we draw our breath, unconsciously."  Sir Charles Bell

We invited participants to create a Hands of Compassion Mandala, expressing images and words of compassion in the form of hands.  Children and adults alike were inspired to participate, coloring and conversing throughout the event, occasionally exclaiming in delight at the wonderful profusion of hands.  May we continue to use our beautiful hands as conscious instruments of compassion.

A Place to Start: Genuine Smiling for the World

Reflecting in the final conversation circle, I commented that compassion can be as simple as a smile, recalling a former client who came to work with me because of a smile.  A few days before she contacted me, she was contemplating suicide on her commute to work when a woman on the train caught her eye and smiled.  Apparently, the depth of connection in that moment inspired a bit of hope and this client changed her mind, opening herself to life.  To think that a simple, genuine smile between strangers can make a difference between life and death! 

Later, perusing the Dalai Lama's website, I found this quote: 

"Though sometimes people laugh when I say it, I myself always want more friends. I love smiles. Because of this I have the problem of knowing how to make more friends and how to get more smiles, in particular, genuine smiles. For there are many kinds of smile, such as sarcastic, artificial or diplomatic smiles. Many smiles produce no feeling of satisfaction, and sometimes they can even create suspicion or fear, can't they? But a genuine smile really gives us a feeling of freshness and is, I believe, unique to human beings. If these are the smiles we want, then we ourselves must create the reasons for them to appear."

His Holiness the Dalai Lama

May we all create the reasons for genuine smiles to appear.  May we open ourselves to experiencing and expressing our innate capacity for compassion.  May seeds of compassion continue to grow...

Kegan's Russian Folktale

At a recent gathering Robert Kegan shared a Russian folktale worth repeating:

On a bitter cold winter day, on his way to chop wood, a woodsman came across a little bird almost frozen in the snow.  Despite his hurry to accomplish the task at hand, he just couldn't bring himself to leave the little bird to freeze to death, so he picked up the little bird and held it close to his chest to warm it.  As he stood there warming the little bird, he realized that his impulse to rescue the little bird now posed quite a dilemma: how was he going to get his wood chopped while holding a small bird in his hands? 

There he stood, pondering what to do, when he noticed some steam rising from the snow in the distance where a herd of cattle had been and instantly he knew what to do.  He walked over and found the largest pile of steaming, fresh, fragrant cow dung that he could find and created a little opening in the middle.  Then, very gently, he placed the little bird in the center and went on with his day. 

The little bird, warm in its new fertile nest, came fully alive and began to sing.  Its song traveled through the forest to the ears of a fox who followed the song back to the little bird and ate it.

------------------

At this point, as you can well imagine, there were many crest-fallen faces in the audience. 

And then, Robert Kegan explained the three morals to this sad little tale:

1. The person who picks you up and rescues you is not necessarily your friend.
2. The person who rescues you and places you in a big, stinking mess is not necessarily your enemy.
3. If you find yourself in a rich, fertile, fragrant pile of dung, don't sing so loudly.

And I will add that if you ever have the occasion to learn with Robert Kegan, do.  You won't regret it.

The Art of Self-Expression

                    

    Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once [s]he grows up.         

~ Pablo Picasso

    May every disciple take care not to cling to words, as if they were a perfect expression of the meaning; because truth is not in the letters.

            ~ Lankavatara Sutra

    You are the artist, you are the raw material, you are the work of art and you are the reality behind the work of art...One experiences ecstasy when one discovers the creator in one, as oneself.

~ Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan

Throughout history, we humans have used art to express ourselves.  We create art not only to represent and beautify our world, but also as a means of understanding and sharing who we are in our world.  Through creative self-expression, we grow in self-awareness, generate insights, resolve problems, and enhance our overall well-being.

However, if you're like many adults, somewhere along the way you may have decided, perhaps without even realizing it, that art-making is not for grown-ups, or at least not for grown-ups like you.  As much as you may like art on the walls and (especially if you share your home with children) the refrigerator, it seems the art-making is best left to artists and children.  After all, when it comes to art, isn't patronage the appropriate role for productive members of society?

You know that you are one such adult if, when invited to draw, doodle, or otherwise engage in some creative activity, you find yourself feeling uncomfortable, perhaps even anxious or mildly panicked.  This discomfort is usually accompanied by thoughts that sound something like this, "This is a waste of time," "please tell me you're kidding," and often culminate in a final protest "But I can't draw." 

Yup, that's when you know that a whole lot of your brain is just withering away from the lack of intentional use.  However, thanks to neuroplasticity--our brains' ability to change its structure and functioning in response to experience--this condition(ing:) is easily treated.  The good news is that with just a little conscious creativity, you can become a smarter, happier, healthier human being.  Here are five good reasons why engaging in artistic self-expression may be just the thing for you.

Finding Our Way Through

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.  Without them humanity cannot survive.
     ~ Dalai Lama

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
     ~ Albert Einstein

If there was a conversation that could begin to ease all suffering--within yourself, within others, and within the world--wouldn't you want to join that conversation?  Earlier this year, I received an invitation to work with Ashley Cooper and Melanie Wroe to produce a guidebook for Seeds of Compassion, an initiative to nurture kindness and compassion in the world.  We were asked to create a simple process that anyone could use to engage in meaningful conversation about compassion--what it means, what it looks like, and how we can embody it more fully in our world.

Since the publication of this guidebook, Compassion Circles are cropping up everywhere.  In libraries, homes, work-places, churches and play-grounds, ordinary people from all walks of life are taking time out of their busy lives to sit in circles, reflect and converse with each other about compassion.  Melanie, Ashley, and I have had the privilege of hosting some of these gatherings, and every time, I am moved by the experience of being part of a room full of people deeply engaged in conversation about a topic that is so essentially human...so familiar, and yet somehow, often remote from our conscious experience.  It is heartening to see so many people involved in making compassion more explicit in our world.

At a recent gathering, participants observed that the primary words embedded in the word compassion are compass and passion.  Curious to follow that etymological conversation thread, I went to my dictionary where I learned that a compass is not only an instrument for finding one's way, but also a means to bring about and comprehend.  And passion is not only a strong desire, but also a suffering.  It seems that in compassion we have the potential not only to comprehend, but also to find our way through suffering--to extend our small circles of caring beyond ourselves and our familiars to encompass humanity and the world.

What if we can find a way to see beyond our "optical delusions of consciousness" and connect with each other through our suffering?  What if we can find a way to be our best even when we are at our worst?  What if we can create a space to reflect and enquire--to ask valuable questions that get to the heart of what matters?  If you're curious and inspired, please join the conversation and host a Compassion Circle... because it takes all of us to grow the seed within each of us...

Presence: It's about Time

"...But because truly being here is so much; because everything here apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way keeps calling to us.  Us, the most fleeting of all..." 

--Rainer Maria Rilke

Many of us regularly travel by air through different time zones, mindfully orienting ourselves to the time of our departures and arrivals at our various destinations, sometimes feeling like it takes awhile to truly arrive, body, mind, and spirit. When we fly, we are particularly attentive to the condition and experience of traveling through time. We navigate clock time—Pacific time, Mountain time, Central time, Eastern time, Atlantic time. We set our watches and schedules, adapting our sleep, meals, and meetings, so we can be on time wherever we are in time. Some of us even have watches that display multiple time zones, so we can more easily attend to the different time zones that constitute our worlds.

Yet, how many of us recognize that we are always traveling through time, experiencing different time zones from moment to moment? At any given moment, we are experiencing the multi-faceted nature of time—simultaneously traveling through past, present, and future, then, now, later, before, after, navigating digital time, analog time, calendar time, biorhythmic time, seasonal time, daytime, nighttime, dream time. We experience the elasticity of time, living years that pass in the blink of an eye, and minutes that hold eternity, and encounters that even seem to transcend time, depending on our experience of the moment. Our history and our potential are present in every instant.

Here's a thought experiment: