tonglen

Gracious, the day got away from me…

I kept meaning to write this blog post but I have been swept away working on the first of 3 courses I am doing with Pema Chödrön. The first course, which I have spent hours on today, is on “Good Medicine” the practice of maitri — loving kindness and compassion; tonglen meditation — “The practice of Tonglen or Giving and Receiving is done to develop our compassion and our ability to be present for our own suffering and the suffering of others.” (Upaya); and the lojong teachings, the basis of tonglen. This is my spiritual work that I will be doing daily over the next year and ongoing, it is the basis of the writing practice that I teach in the Sunday Night Writing Group classes, and has led me to believe that my work in the next year here on the blog should be “A Year Of Compassionate Acts.” This would be very broad and could include things like self-care, taking care of an animal, a child, or the elderly, making oneself a good meal, all manner of showing compassion and kindness to both ourselves and others. I think this is what I will be doing.

The thing is that this is such big work I have been making copious notes as I watched video after video after video, and then I went around the house gathering armfuls of books to bring back here to my work table in preparation for writing my outline for next Sunday’s class. I welcomed new students into the private Facebook group for the classes, watered the front porch garden, cooked a big pan of salmon for dinner tonight and the days ahead, and somehow the whole day had slipped by and now it is 9:00 at night. Good grief, the blog post! I exclaimed, startling the pugs no end! And now here we are.

I got a lot of work done today. I talked to my darling daughter Rachel on the phone and Noni stopped by to show me her new puppy. It has been a day filled with so many things. I am going to have to leave you with this meager post dear ones.

When I was pulling books off of the shelves I was delighted to find my old copy of Pema’s book, Start Where You Are. Paging through the book with so much highlighting, so many underlinings, and notes in the margins I could barely see any plain text I came across a quote I love…

“If we are willing to stand fully in our own shoes and never give up on ourselves, then we will be able to put ourselves in the shoes of others and never give up on them.”
Pema Chödrön
Start Where You Are:
A Guide to Compassionate Living

This was my life today, standing in my own shoes, working on material for my students whom I love deeply, and remembering why I took the name Maitri legally after my divorce, to remind myself to center my writing, teaching, and my life in loving-kindness and compassion. It’s what matters to me most. It’s what my life is all about.

Now I will get ready to go to bed with my sweet pugs. “Bed” for us means the big over-sized recliner that I sleep in with my two darling elderly pugs. Here we were just waking up this morning, Pugsley in my nap, and Delilah right behind him. This, too, is compassion, mine for them and them for me. This, too, is my life…