Developing Compassion

Written by:  Stacy Kamala Waltman
September26, 2010

Before the heroes journey our laser sharp and strategic mind identifies and postulates experiences outside – intellectually, abstractly and compartmentalized.

Everything neatly in its place constricted, rigid and controlled by repetition and stale, lifeless air.

Synapse grooves deepen becoming more and more entrenched.  Caring for others only when payoff wafts and ego satiated.

Enter Grace; as miraculous intervention.  With veiled eyes her gifts are discarded; valueless.  Our sight on another horizon of glory.

Refusing the rebuke while turning up the heat, Grace stands firm remaining cloaked.  We begin the journey; unawares.  A reluctant traveler still holding on.

Tests accelerate; tackle once depended upon melts as we enter hot swampy depths; tar pits, shadow selves and skeletons abound.

Hell, this must be we decide.  How will we survive?  We can’t possibly deserve this wrath!  After all!…..but the ripening has begun in spite of accelerated protests.

Applying what we know, failing again and again.  We need to become firmer the past demands!  Take hold!  I AM in charge!

Constricting tightly, then inevitable shattering into slivered shards.

Yet Grace still there gently smiling, showers us with fresh new gifts; courage and vision.  A newer and richer life  reflected in those threads of glass.

Light cast in radiant hues.

Vulnerable, scared, hopeless yet brave; new unfamiliar tools slowly hammer within.

Awkwardness increases in direct proportion to vision, vast.  Yesterday’s certainty a dusty mirage.

Beginner’s mind congeals as we traverse this dark night.  Unsteady and staggering we forge anew.

Today’s discomfort fights yesterday’s certainty; battle raging in a field of ambivalence.  To the death each one cries!

One is annihilated, the other truly born.

Grace, like a firefly flickers again with encouragement seen only with vision, clear.

Emerging from the darkened swamp, demons vanquished, black wood drizzled with dappled light; knowledge transmuting.

Wisdom weaves then integrates into cellular memory, the decay giving rise to the bloom.  A blossom rare.

As seasons pass, compassion springs forth from these seeded fields, no longer feigned.

Allowing, letting go, surrendering into interconnectedness. ~

Copyright © 2010 (Stacy Kamala Waltman)

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Buddha’s Wisdom

 

 Here is an excerpt from the book, The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist: 

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Buddha told his followers that whatever they chose to give their attention, their love, their appreciation, their listening, and their affirmation to would grow in their life and in their world. 

He likened one’s life and the world to a garden ~ a garden that calls for sunlight and nourishment and water to grow.
 

In that garden are the seeds of compassion, forgiveness, love, commitment, courage and all the qualities that affirm and inspire us.

Alongside those seeds and in the same garden are the seeds of hatred, the seeds of prejudice, the seeds of vengeance, the seeds of violence, and all the other hurtful, destructive ways of being.

These seeds and many more like them exist in the same garden.  The seeds that grow are the seeds we tend with our attention.

Our attention is like water and sunshine, and the seeds we cultivate will grow and fill our garden. 

If we choose to invest our attention in the seeds of scarcity ~ acquisition, accumulation, greed, and all that springs from those seeds ~ then scarcity is what will fill the space of our life and the space of our world. 

If we tend the seeds of sufficiency with our attention, and use our money like water to nourish them with soulful purpose, then we will enjoy that bountiful harvest. 

 

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