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Last month, I had an operation and spent a few nights in a hospital. During those nights, I felt soooooo unexpectedly lonely…soooooooooooo vulnerable and sooooooooooo dependent. The doctor/surgeon was skilled, warm-hearted, encouraging and competent. The nursing staff seemed very competent and responsible, but seemed so busy and preoccupied with their data gathering and data entry on their computers and…well, I don’t know what they were connecting to, but it didn’t seem to be offering “warmth” to me. They took excellent care of monitoring vital signs, the various medications and the pain pump that I had for physical pain… and I’m very thankful for that… but I had a different kind of pain…sadness, loneliness and vulnerability. I soooooo wished for a quick, warm smile or a few encouraging or comforting words…but, for unknown reasons, that didn’t seem to happen.
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Sooooooo…in the middle of that first night, as I was feeling so low, I starting imagining sitting in a colorful, warm, snuggly, soft, welcoming chair that was in a children’s book, A Chair for My Mother. (My own mother had died 2 weeks before the operation, so I was feeling sad and raw from that, too..and I had had a preliminary operation and biopsy two days before my mother had died…so lots of sadness, loss and concern)
That beautiful imagined chair offered such a welcoming sense of love and compassion flowing freely into me, through me and out of me…a lovely, lovely, comforting sensation….
When I got home, and throughout the 2 months after I got home, I continued to imagine sitting in that chair and receiving a rich, continuing flow of Love and Compassion.
I wanted to continue to use that imagined symbolic chair for comfort and inspiration….so I found that book and did a cut and paste of that lovely imagined chair that had comforted, nurtured and sustained me during those nights…and then, for the past month, I’ve continued to imagine sitting in that chair…and started to make more pages, using that chair as a symbol of the sustaining and abundant love and compassion coming into me, nurturing my own heart and mind and flowing through and out of me and into the lives of others who also might be in need of love and compassion…
And soooooo…. the warm and nurturing sense of love and compassion progresses…………
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Compassion: the wish for all beings, myself included to be free from “suffering” and to be free from the causes of suffering.
Love: the wish for all beings, myself included, to be happy and to have the causes of continuing happiness
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Compassion and love…imagining that sense….immersing into me…surrounding me… nurturing within me… sustaining me…..offering strength and comfort….
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Compassion and love…
flowing into me from so many people throughout my entire lifetime…
My own heart…
throughout this entire lifetime…
having been immersed in, surrounded by, nurtured within and sustained by
an abundance of compassion and love from so many people, animals, beauty, nature
the flow of
compassion and love…
continually, freely flowing outward from me, being offered and shared with others…
a continual, nourishing flow of compassion and love
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compassion and love
continually…coming into my heart…
nurturing, nourishing and sustaining my heart
….passing freely through my heart….
….flowing out to be shared with others….
……….a continual flow of compassion and love…….
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~Our hearts…
compassion and love
flowing…in…through…and out…
the continual flow of “beauty and grace….”
the continual flow of “compassion and love”
compassion and love
perhaps, one of the purest forms of beauty and grace…???
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~~Part 2
…continuing thoughts….after a few more weeks of pondering and reflecting….looking more carefully…putting these ideas into a much larger context…into a context of being part of “common humanity”…. the struggles and challenges of all beings….
Slowly, slowly, slowly…..I’m developing a greater awareness of the preciousness of nurturing a deeper, steadier sense love and compassion in my own life and then, hopefully, being able to offer and share that sustaining sense of love and compassion with others…
A progression of steps I can practice:
“Faith” in the precious benefits of love and compassion in every being’s life, my own included
“Yearning” to develop and live with more steady and continuing love and compassion in my own heart….and a yearning to share that with others…
“Aspiration” … a sincere aspiration to develop and nurture greater love and compassion for myself and others…
“Sustained effort“ to live with a sincere and connected sense of love and compassion for myself and others…
Leading to a deeper, steadier, richer and more abundant sense of “compassion and love“ for all beings, myself included.
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How amazingly fortunate I am to have a life that is good and I’m deeply, deeply thankful for that…
And then…reflecting and recognizing how many people around the word are struggling and suffering…
Opening my heart to the awareness of the incredibly basic levels of suffering so many millions and millions of people experience…hunger, health problems, no access to health care or doctors….
And so…opening my heart and eyes…. so many people in the world who have so many basic, everyday needs and struggles…recognizing their pain and suffering and so sincerely wishing them to be free from suffering… sharing some of what I have with them so that perhaps they too might be free of some of their own everyday suffering…that they will also be able to experience more happiness, more healthy and happy smiles, more vision, more hope….
I do have a life that is good…may I share some of what I have with others in need…
Perhaps…as simple as a warm smile, a happy hello, a few words of interest or kindness.
I remember that “fleeting glimpse” of a sense of “suffering” I had felt during those few nights in the hospital…and it HAD felt horrible…And so, to share what I can with those who are experiencing continuing, daily “hard times”…may I help out in whatever manner I can…and may their hard times decrease and come again no more….
Compassion: the wish for all beings, myself included to be free from “suffering” and to have the causes to be free from suffering.
Love: the wish for all beings, myself included, to be happy and to have the causes of continuing happiness
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Can you see what was happening? Much to my surprise, over those following weeks… it seems like I was progressing from…
My own “isolated” felt sense of “suffering”….a fleeting glimpse that had a powerful impact on me…the loneliness, vulnerability and dependence that I felt while in the hospital and after the deaths of my mother and aunt…
To offering myself a continuing, gentle, nurturing sense of love and compassion as I imagined sitting in that “compassion and love” chair… feeling immersed in, surrounded by, nurtured within and sustained by a a rich and warm sense of love and compassion coming into me…
And then progressing in that awareness…my heart opening more widely and my eyes looking around for others who might also be suffering…far greater, deeper and more sustained suffering than I’ve ever experienced in my own life…and doing what I can to offer to help some of those people…
compassion and love
coming in…passing through…offering out…
~Our hearts…
love and compassion
flowing…in…through…and out…
the continual flow of “beauty and grace….”
the continual flow of “love and compassion”…
love and compassion….perhaps, one of the truest forms of beauty and grace…???
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It really feels awful to have a sense of “suffering”…and it’s awful to think of others feeling that way or worse….so to do all we can to help others avoid that state or to get out of that state…simply that…”shower the people we know and don’t know with love….”
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How strange this seems…feeling such sadness, loneliness and vulnerability in the hospital….remembering that chair from a children’s book…imagining sitting in that chair and taking in a nurturing sense of love and compassion….and then leading to so many awarenesses and understandings about myself and others…spreading outward from my own sense of unhappiness to doing what I can to help others…… how lovely…. I guess…you just never know!
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the beauty and grace….of compassion and love
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Pocket Perspectives 