Tara Brach: May the Suffering of Our Times Serve to Awaken an Engaged, Living Compassion

Reflections from November 10, 2016...

This was my second day to wear black. I am aware of being in deep mourning. There was also the gift today of connecting with so many at and outside of work with the tenderness and vulnerability and shared empathic understanding of our hurting and grieving hearts. Ron and I continue to hold each other a lot. I hold my children and grandchildren closely in my heart. And I hold us all in my heart and prayers. There is this ever expanding awareness of both this great grief and this Great Awakening that is unfolding and shared by millions. And the numbers of those whose hearts are breaking open is growing! May more and more of us have the courage and support to allow this breaking open rather than the violence of building walls around the tenderness and wisdom and love of our hearts. So there is also gratitude as more and more is flooding to the surface to illuminate connection rather than separation, compassion rather than judgment, tenderness rather than cruelty, kindness rather than the many faces of violence, and wisdom and love rather than unconsciousness and harm.

My heart also mirrors and responds to this beautiful gift from Tara Brach with a resounding YES!! --

Dear Ones - May we open to the realness of what arises in us - fear, distress, grief - whatever the intensity of feeling - with full presence and tenderness.

May we find refuge in loving companionship.

May the suffering of our times serve to awaken an engaged, living compassion.

And may we be guided by the wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr: "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."

With love and prayer, Tara

from Tara Brach