We Practice For All Beings Everywhere
I recently heard Rebecca Solnit talk about the word emergency. In a podcast about Hope in the Dark, Rebecca tells the listener that the word Emergency comes from the word emerge, or to exit, or leave behind. Emergency as a leaving behind the familiar. To exit the things that have been and to enter something new. To make a home in the uncertain and the unknown. She then defined hope as an ax to break doors down. Hope is where you begin. Hope is refuge. Hope as a tool for action. Hope is a form of care.
As we navigate these dark times I want to remind us all that practice is an important part of how we hold ourselves and others in difficult times. When we practice, we expand the capacity of our hearts, we connect with the truth, and we come to remember that we are all innately interconnected. If we can come to the center of this truth, then our practice inevitably has a ripple effect in the lives of those around us, and as you are about to read, in the lives of people we may not even know.
“Once, when I was teaching a loving kindness Retreat, one of the students told me about the impact this practice had in our life. She said that the entire past year of her life had been filled with a great deal of loss and disappointment. It would have been easy for her to become disconsulate except for one thing: her recognition somewhere in the world somebody was offering loving kindness to all sent in beings everywhere. By definition that included her. Somebody somewhere. Never having met her, not knowing her situation, not having any personal connection to her, was actually sending her thoughts of loving kindness. Someone was opening his or her heart and wishing for her happiness, peace, safety, and freedom. This was happening simply by virtue of the fact that she existed; She was a sentient being, and that was enough for her to be a deserving recipient of the force of love. This recognition, she said, was the singular force that had given her the strength to go on, to keep her heart from breaking during difficult times.” From A Heart As Wide As The World by Sharon Salzberg
I encourage you to practice, as a toll of radical love for the world.