Compassion for all sentient beings is beyond emotion. However, compassion will make your heart tender and spring tears to your eyes.
-Renee Faber-
-Renee Faber-
What does it mean to be a good neighbor? This question is reminiscent of the saying 'think globally, act locally'. In relation to neighboring, the local begins with your innermost self. In order to be a good neighbor, we must begin by being kind to ourselves. To be authentically kind to ourselves, we need to learn how to accept both our joys and our sufferings with love and compassion. When we accept our own transgressions, understand our own minds, and experience our innate compassion, we are able to accept others' transgressions, celebrate their innate worth, and connect to them through compassion.
It can be very difficult to look deeply into ourselves, our inner workings, due to our unhealthy habit patterns. Unhealthy habit patterns are tricky little things, distorting our perspective of how we view ourselves. They lock us into a rigid way of thinking, moving, and acting. What we want are healthy habit patterns rooted in compassion and wisdom. Healthy habits bring about joy, lightness, and peace.
Meditation and mindfulness clear away unhealthy habit patterns. These practices are like winds that move the clouds of unhealthy patterns away to show our minds to be beautiful open blue skies of peace. And in that vast blue sky of peace we become aware of our innate worth.
The more dense and embedded the unhealthy habit patterns dwell, the more there is a need to cultivate courage and commitment to keep up our goal of cultivating healthy habits. The wondrous result of healthy habits is that they reveal our innate worth. The process of deep-looking begins by asking ourselves questions, and checking in with ourselves from the physical level to the emotional level. At YWM we offer many of these practices to help guide us into the bright blue unadulterated sky of our minds.
The more dense and embedded the unhealthy habit patterns dwell, the more there is a need to cultivate courage and commitment to keep up our goal of cultivating healthy habits. The wondrous result of healthy habits is that they reveal our innate worth. The process of deep-looking begins by asking ourselves questions, and checking in with ourselves from the physical level to the emotional level. At YWM we offer many of these practices to help guide us into the bright blue unadulterated sky of our minds.
We effortlessly feel innate compassion for all sentient beings when we discover our own worth. Maintaining a mindful view of the preciousness and worth of all beings, we are naturally going to be good to ourselves, good to our neighbors, good to the environment that nurtures us, and kind-hearted to all beings on this earth.
To think globally is a direct method to keep our inspiration fresh in order to maintain our mindfulness and meditation. The moment we consider the millions of people on earth who all carry with them the same qualities we ourselves possess, such as hopes, fears, dreams, sadnesses, joy, and love, our minds and hearts relax and a great tenderness for life arises. This is the basis for Buddhist practices called loving-kindness meditations.
Thinking globally is to practice loving-kindness by drawing from your innate compassion for other people. Loving-kindness is an amazing technique because when you meditate regularly with a healthy motivation of compassion for others, you discover your true nature and you experience effortless motivation to be a good neighbor to all beings. With loving-kindness meditations, our beginning motivation of conjuring a connection to others with loving-kindness becomes the fully manifested goal of being a good neighbor! How wondrous! This actualized compassion can now bubble up and flow through us naturally. It is a true gift to ourselves and others to be able to offer our goodness, generosity, and gifts to neighbors, friends, and family.
Because we are all interconnected as human beings, our ability to have compassion for all beings (think globally) opens ourselves up to be able to be a good neighbor to ourselves first (act locally) and then radiate out this goodness back to all others (a return to thinking globally). This cycle of loving-kindness creates magnificent ripples of positive effects that, quite literally, circle the globe.
To think globally is a direct method to keep our inspiration fresh in order to maintain our mindfulness and meditation. The moment we consider the millions of people on earth who all carry with them the same qualities we ourselves possess, such as hopes, fears, dreams, sadnesses, joy, and love, our minds and hearts relax and a great tenderness for life arises. This is the basis for Buddhist practices called loving-kindness meditations.
Thinking globally is to practice loving-kindness by drawing from your innate compassion for other people. Loving-kindness is an amazing technique because when you meditate regularly with a healthy motivation of compassion for others, you discover your true nature and you experience effortless motivation to be a good neighbor to all beings. With loving-kindness meditations, our beginning motivation of conjuring a connection to others with loving-kindness becomes the fully manifested goal of being a good neighbor! How wondrous! This actualized compassion can now bubble up and flow through us naturally. It is a true gift to ourselves and others to be able to offer our goodness, generosity, and gifts to neighbors, friends, and family.
Because we are all interconnected as human beings, our ability to have compassion for all beings (think globally) opens ourselves up to be able to be a good neighbor to ourselves first (act locally) and then radiate out this goodness back to all others (a return to thinking globally). This cycle of loving-kindness creates magnificent ripples of positive effects that, quite literally, circle the globe.
"We all desire connection. Sometimes our lack of intimacy with others reaches for love with force and we receive the opposite, disconnection. If you want connection, begin by first connecting to yourself. Get to know yourself at the deepest most subtle of levels. It is in this knowing that you can authentically connect to others and receive what you desire, effortlessly and wondrously." Renee Faber