Bless us all, no exceptions. — Molly
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Excerpts from Becoming the Ally of All Beings.
A teaching by Sharon Salzberg on the interconnectedness
of all things.
...It may seem impossible to genuinely care about all beings everywhere. But developing the heart of loving-kindness is not about straining, not about gritting your teeth and, though seething with anger, somehow covering it over with a positive sentiment. Loving-kindness is a capacity we all have. We only have to see things as they actually are.
When we take the time to be quiet, to be still, we begin to see the web of conditions, which is the force of life itself, as it comes together to produce each moment. When we look deeply, we see constant change; we look into the face of impermanence, insubstantiality, lack of solidity. As the Buddha pointed out, given this truth, trying to control that which can never be controlled will not give us security or safety, will not give us final happiness. In fact, trying to control ever-changing and insubstantial phenomena is what gives rise to our sense of isolation and fragmentation. When we try to hold on to something that is crumbling or falling apart, and we see that not only is it crumbling but we are changing in just the same way, then there’s fear, terror, separation and a lot of suffering.
If we re-vision our world and our relationship to it so that we are no longer trying to fruitlessly control but rather are connecting deeply to things as they are, then we see through the insubstantiality of all things to our fundamental interconnectedness. Being fully connected to our own experience, excluding no aspect of it, guides us right through to our connectedness with all beings. There are no barriers; there is no separation. We are not standing apart from anything or anyone. We are never alone in our suffering, and we are not alone in our joy, because all of life is a swirl of conditions, a swirl of mutual influences coming together and coming apart. By going to the heart of any one thing, we see all things. We see the very nature of life.
There was a monk in the Buddha’s time, it is said, who originally came from an extremely wealthy aristocratic family. Because he had lived a very pampered life, he was ignorant about some of the simplest things, which made him the object of much teasing by the other monks. One day they asked him, “Where does rice come from, brother?” He replied, “It comes from a golden bowl.” And when they asked him, “Where does milk come from, brother?” he answered, “It comes from a silver bowl.”
In some ways, our own perceptions about the nature of existence may be a bit like those of that monk. When we attempt to understand how our lives work, if we do not look closely, we may see only superficial connections and relationships forming our world. Upon closer examination, we come to understand that each aspect of our present reality arises not from “golden and silver bowls” but rather from a vast ocean of conditions that come together and come apart at every moment. Seeing this is the root of compassion and loving-kindness. All things, when seen clearly, are not independent but rather are interdependent with all other things, with the universe, with life itself...
Seeing this vision of vastness, of interconnectedness, gives rise to loving-kindness. We look at a tree and see it not as a seemingly solitary, singular entity but as a set of relationships—of elements and forces and contingencies all connecting in constant motion: the seed that was planted, and the quality of the soil that received the seed; the quality of the air, and the sunlight, the moonlight, the wind. That is the tree. In the same way, each of us in every moment is a set of relationships. That is lovingkindness. It is a view rather than a feeling. It is a view that arises from a radical perception of nonseparateness.
In teaching loving-kindness, I have found that people are afraid when they think of it as a sentiment—afraid that they’re not capable of feeling it, afraid that they will feel hypocritical or complacent if they try. But loving-kindness is not a manufactured emotion. As soon as we define it as a certain feeling, we make it into an object, a thing, something we give or don’t give, something we have or don’t have, something we might have to produce on demand, like a card on Valentine’s Day. Loving-kindness is not an object, it is an essential way of seeing that arises when we free ourselves from our normal mental habits that create division and boundaries and barriers, that create a sense of self and other. The practice of loving-kindness is a relinquishing, a coming back, a relaxing into our natural state of mind.
Almost from my first acquaintance with dharma practice, I heard that loving-kindness and compassion were elements or manifestations of the natural state of mind. I would hear that and think, “No way. Look at this world—it’s a mess. I’m also a mess. There’s just no way that these qualities can be the natural state of the mind.” But as I have continued to investigate life, what I’ve come to see again and again and again, without a single exception ever, is that when I see things more clearly, when I can be a little more still and not rush to judgment, when I learn something about somebody or about myself, even if it is just information, when I see a situation or a person more clearly, I am always brought to a greater sense of connection, to a greater sense of loving-kindness. Never has clearer seeing led to more separation or distance, more alienation or fear. Not once.
A friend of mine was a wonderfully empathic therapist. One day a man came to see her, beseeching her to take him as a client. She found his political views alienating, his feelings about women repugnant and his behavior quite annoying. In short, she didn’t like him at all and urged him to find another therapist. However, because he very much wanted to work with her, she finally acquiesced.
Now, because he was her client, she tried to look at his unskillful behavior, and the ways he shut himself off, with compassion instead of contempt and fear. As they worked together, she began to see all the ways in which his life was very difficult. She began to see that he longed—as she herself did—for happiness and how, like her, he suffered. Although she continued to recognize, without denial, his unpleasant behavior, she found that she did so with the feeling that she was necessarily his ally. The goal became his release from suffering. He had become “hers.” Even though I don’t believe she ever liked him, or approved of many of his views, she came to love him.
Love and compassion are not conceptual states, they’re not things we put on as a kind of veneer or pretense, not something we are obliged to parrot, no matter what we are actually feeling. When we let go of our concepts of duality and separation, then love, which is connection, and compassion, which is kindness, arise as reflections of the mind’s natural state. This is not just a nice idea; this is something very real and fundamental...
We are all bodhisattvas, not in the sense of being saviors running around taking care of everybody’s problems, but through the truth of interconnectedness. There is no separation. We all belong to each other. This, of course, can be a very difficult place to act from in the course of our daily lives. A friend of mine was once home alone when the doorbell rang. When he opened the door, he found himself facing a disheveled, wild-looking person. As my friend attempted to get this stranger to leave, the man looked at him and said sadly, “Don’t you know me anymore?” They had, in fact, never before met. While it was probably wise to refuse the man entry, his words were a tremendous teaching: “Don’t you know me anymore? Don’t you recognize me as a part of your life?” To be a bodhisattva, to open to our capacity for loving-kindness, is more a matter of recognition of our interconnectedness than a dictum for certain kinds of actions.
We are essentially no different from each other, no matter who we are. We share the same urge toward happiness, and not one of us leaves this earth without having suffered. As the Buddha said, “All beings everywhere want to be happy.” It is only due to ignorance that we do the things that create suffering or sorrow for ourselves and for others. If we take the time to slow down and see all the different forces coming together in any action, we will see this desire for happiness even in the midst of some terribly harmful action. While we can and should take a strong stand against harmful behavior, we can do so without disconnecting ourselves from anyone. This is compassion and loving-kindness based on clear seeing...
This quality of empathy is also the basis of modern psychological thought on the development of morality. We learn not to hurt others because we understand how it feels to be hurt. If others are seen as objects rather than as sensitive beings, it’s quite easy to harm. But if we understand, from within, the pain that others would experience from our actions, then there arises a clear and true sense of morality.
Empathy and nonseparation are the most fundamental aspects of loving-kindness. This is what we need to recognize as loving-kindness: a radical seeing of our nonseparateness, knowing our oneness, our indivisibility. When we see through ignorance and arrive at the heart of our interconnectedness, it is as if we had been living in a bad dream, and our anguish and sorrow were born of simply not seeing. From clear seeing arises the uncontrived loving-kindness that is the truth of our bodhisattva nature.
Please go here for the full article: https://www.lionsroar.com/becoming-the-ally-of-all-beings/
Please go here for more by Sharon Salzberg: https://www.lionsroar.com/the-best-of-sharon-salzberg-life-teachings-quotes-and-books/
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