Be more compassionate

In the Pema Chodron book I’ve been reading, she mentioned how there was one woman who made it her goal not to hate any political leaders. Pema said that the woman wrote articles about this and had a very difficult time with it… I don’t even know if she accomplished the goal.. but I thought that was really great. It’s an amazing challenge and I don’t know if I could manage such a thing!

than being compassionate towards the people closest to you? Like, say family? It’s odd, but it’s very easy to be compassionate towards people you don’t know, because you don’t know the patterns of their lives or what they’re like, really, on an intimate level.. and, while, you probably don’t know this about people you think you’re close to, the illusion that you do makes it very difficult to understand them. It’s like the idea of intimacy creates a smoke-screen that is near-impossible to see through.

As of this moment, my boyfriend’s family is a huge target of non-compassion. I am struggling with them (in my heart and mind) a great deal lately. I care about them deeply, but get so frustrated with them. It’s hard to be in a relationship with people who drive you nuts and it’s so easy to just shut down. But, how do we stay alive during these interactions? How do you pull yourself out from under years of miscommunications or of not being heard to let things be fresh and forgiven?

I’ve slipped away from this one quite a bit lately. I think I’m struggling because I’m not completely compassionate. What happens these days is that I care about people, know they’re not happy, to try help them, and then get mad at them when they don’t change. Seems a little codependent to me. I’m going to start really working on this because it’s driving me insane.

One thing I’ve started doing is asking my beau or my friend Nancy for help if I’m angry at someone. I ask them to give me insight into why the person behaved the way that they did. I find that discussing what’s upsetting me and understanding someone else’s perspective has been a real help. It’s also a good way to get a reality check from the people I care about without them having to confront me about things… this way, I invite their interpretation and advice about how I’m behaving without my having to get so out of hand that they say something.

I also do this meditation exercise that’s slowly bringing me around. It’s a little cheesy, but it really helps. It’s from Robert Thurman’s book infinite living. You visualize yourself in a very beautiful place, high in the mountains, and there’s this gigantic flower that is like the beanstalk fron JITBS it’s so big. On the flower is whatever person or thing you feel is a spiritual ideal (for some it could be Jesus or the Buddha or a ball of pure white light or your Aunt Maybel). This person/object starts sending you waves of love and you can feel yourself filling up with love. They could be rainbows of light or sparks of electricity or it could be just a feeling. You feel yourself filling up with the love so much that it starts to overflow.

Then, suddenly, people start appearing and gatherine around you. They can be people you know who are alive or passed away or even people you don’t know. They don’t see the flower with the diety sending you love or even the rainbows or electricity coming into; they are simply drawn by the radiance of your love. And you start sending waves of love to those people. You see each person and try to fill them with the energy/love that’s overflowing from you.

After this, you just thank the person/thing on the flower. You can do this by simply saying thankyou or sending love back to them, or you can create a symphony to play them a song or do something creative like that.

I find that this really helps me a lot, because certain people will show up and I’ll resist giving them love and I’ll start to work on allowing myself to give to them. It helps me understand why I hold back giving in my relationship and how I might overcome those feelings. It also really helps me to see that, ultimately, everyone wants to be happy and they just have different ways of trying to find it than I do.

Well, that was a long entry! I hope it helps someone. :)

I’ve gotten some great feedback on this from other members and I really appreciate it! The problem with this goal is that it’s really hard to quantify. I’m taking a lot of goals off my list that are hard to know when they’re completed… I’m not going to take this one off because I think it’s important.. then only thing is, I don’t know that it’s something that can ever really be completed.

I did really well at this when I first started learning about Buddhism and meditating.. but then I kind of lost track of myself. I started noticing more and more how other people weren’t being compassionate and it made me angry instead of thoughtful… any advice is appreciated.