Sunday Sitting Group, in person 4/14/24, Lisa Kring

and um you know this year yeah I know it looks like he's here I know I know right uh but feel free to yeah because you know we're really here to connect it's so so important to connect in a real way welcome a and um we also want to really connect with those of you online and and make you feel felt and uh present with us so welcome really warmly welcoming you I feel really happy to be here with you all good morning good morning hi come on in and if we need to set up more chairs if people don't want to sit on the ground we can we can pull those in and yeah what's your name what is it Tamar Tamara Tamara beautiful beautiful Rick nice to see you I I've seen you before yeah welcome so happy to see you yeah and there are blankets over there if you want to grab a blanket to be cozy see these guys have got a blanket for his feet it's really nice yeah I brought socks oh I love that bowl yeah feel free to settle and do some movements some stretching if you like just to yeah just to warm up the body to really drop in good morning good morning and what is it like for you this morning to be embodied how does that feel what's that really like you can only know by dropping down in yeah the answer to the question question only you can know that yeah being being embodied being um present in the felt sense of the body and um I always welcome great to see you um I always feel that to become fully present in that definition of mindfulness it's almost like that component of the Mind Body Connection as being kind of you know bringing that into alignment as being a you know the First Foundation of mindfulness being the body as being really uh that kind of first that first shift into presence into being here in a real way receptive available present yeah not not from the neck up it's a full body experience right being in this life welcome everyone I'm really thrilled to see you Alla I know and deep bow to everybody who's weathered and come through the rain but there's a big smile on your face it feels kind of cool to get here and and to find others and to join welcome oh and get your blankets yes get warm and cozy if you need it yeah welcome welcome welcome yeah and uh what's our time I I'm using my um phone as a clock because I didn't wear a watch and normally we have um little clock up here hi welcome and just by way of introduction my name is Lisa cring maybe some of you know me maybe some of you do not I'm a teacher with inside La over 20 years oh my God it's like I must be really getting older 20 years 20 years but I live on the on the east side so I was um when we had our centers just by way of introduction I would come occasionally to teach on in this Center isn't it amazing that we're back in this space for those of you who it's my first time back here now so this is really wellow it feels so comfortable though um but I taught primarily in the East Hollywood space that we had that we used to have before Co so um happy to be on the west side today and also really happy to um have very little traffic driving over it was really pretty nice yeah yeah settle in on the floor I I love to sit on the floor but I'll stay in the chair tonight welcome those of you online I just want to welcome you give us a wave and can you see me can you see the room hi a welcome welcome ah peace yes thank you appreciate that yeah so I was saying as um as some of you were coming in these minutes before we start if you'd like to do any kind of really you can close your eyes when you do it just letting the body lead in this Sunday morning time just any kind of gentle stretching or yeah allow yourself to drop in and and in in a way that is infused with a kind of friendship you know really do any stretching that you like to do warm the body up warm up your practice by connecting to the yeah and just feel free feel free to do some stretching some movement welcome welcome and as you do ah it just really allows you to start to drop into a felt sense of the body in the room of this morning this moment yeah making it welcome hi welcome those of you online who are just coming in as well yeah feel free to stretch and I'm going to open with about a 30 minute meditation guided practice and feel free if you if you like to as a way to drop down a bit more fully into your direct experience you can stretch a little you can move yeah it's nice [Music] hi Lisa Lisa can you hear me yes oh hi hi so nice to see you ah wonderful wait can I see wait where is your face online uh oh there there there Trudy's here she's we're beaming her in beaming her up beaming her in deep bow a and you're you're suffused with light well I'm back a little bit I know but it's lovely yeah um I'm so glad you're here welcome thank you you want to say something uh before or after I know that just um before okay great but I always give people Lisa I usually give people until about four minutes after to yeah trickle in yeah that sounds good I thought I thought before and then you'll carry on with your beautiful teaching okay that sounds great okay welcome welcome welcome and um Trudy's here virtually which is great um historically and maybe many of you come on this sit because it's been um Trudy Goodman's regular Sunday morning sit how many of you feel that you identify as being part of that yeah yeah beautiful welcome back and um I'm so happy that Trudy's here she wanted to just say a few words um because she's you know deservedly kind of stepping back and taking a little bit of a sabatical and um other senior teachers such as myself will be rotating and holding the space on Sunday mornings here um so it's a real honor to to carry this on with all of you and get to know you meet you where you are practice with you hi and um but Trudy wanted to say a few words to explain yeah welcome great to see you how are you yeah so I'm gonna wait a few minutes since people are probably still arriving yeah I think that's a good idea and just by way of introduction for those of you who don't know me I know maybe some other people will arrive but um as I was saying I'm I've been a teacher with inside La for over 20 years which sounds like a long time um and uh I'm a licensed clinical social worker so I'm also a therapist and um teach Dharma but also because of my clinical background I've I've been a longtime practitioner of mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindful self-compassion those kinds of things so I do like to kind of take traditional Dharma and Infuse it with um with uh interesting insights into neuroscience and you know inform it that way make it as relevant as possible and uh this morning I thought um I would love to offer and focus us on the theme of um of cultivating compassion I hope that feels really welcome to everybody yeah so Lisa Lisa cring yeah so Lisa are people still arriving there in the hall you know I don't see anybody coming in but they may be walking up the stairs as I'm talking don't know can everyone hear me okay okay great I love I love having this because then I don't have to work I can just allow my voice to be natural it's really nice I also want to really give a deep bow and a thanks to um Alexis and to Corey who were here helping deep bow oh my goodness tech support you have no idea thank you so much for your practice for your time and Alexis made coffee and put out treats so really thankful I arrived and everything was set up already it was amazing So Lisa I think I will just begin now if that's okay since yeah please go people arriving and you know I wanted I wanted to welcome and thank you Lisa is my uh Dharma sister somebody that I mentored over the years at inside LA and Lisa has taught at inside La for long long long time and she has served on the board basically Lisa you have given so much of yourself to this organization and I really grateful to you and very happy that that you're here and for everybody I'm going to miss seeing you for the next few months I have to say that um it is not been easy for me to decide this but my doctors are so happy that I am taking a leave of absence and I'm actually in Spain right now last week I told everybody that I would be visiting our little 5-year-old grandson and his lovely parents uh for five weeks here in this little village uh called filana which is about an hour south of Malaga in Andalusia it's a very small village you can walk from one end to the other in way less than an hour and so it's a very peaceful restful place um for me to be right now and and I will I'll check in with you from time to time you all have my my email address and I don't know who's moderating the uh online group today is it oh thanks thanks Camille you know my address so you can just put it in the chat if people want to be in touch that's fine and uh I'm again I'm just really grateful to you Lisa grateful to all of you who are showing up and supporting your practice and you know this group is called Trudy and friends and for a while it's going to be friends so yeah and I don't know are you taking it over Lisa mostly or oh no no I think my understanding is there's going to be a small group of us rotating and because I live on the east side I'm happy to come once a month because that makes sense you know if needed it was really easy to get here this morning but um it's going to be definitely friends is appropriate yeah and Thomas will be teaching next week and I know some of you are definitely Thomas fans so that's great um and I'm happy to hear from you so please don't hesitate to email me and I'll miss you for a while thank you everybody I love you and just keep up your practice keep coming Sunday morning keep supporting uh both your practice and inside La thank you so much thank you Trudy Thank You by Trudy there'd be no inside La without Trudy so all right and welcome all of you online that have just come on perhaps ah come on in everybody so um what I'd love to do is offer and you know before we start why don't you just turn to anyone that perhaps you don't know who's nearby you and just introduce yourself and say hi it's so nice to do that [Laughter] just yeah these are wonderful these are folks that yeah yeah yeah get to know your your buddies here and um because this is really a community and um I'm sure that um as you get to know each other better it breaks the ice and um uh these are people that you want to spend time with right that you're all here it's so beautiful all right so settle in please and um I'll offer a guided meditation I'm going to focus on uh compassion and um we'll start uh with a very simp Le practice of being with the breath so that we can settle and then I'll allow and see what it feels like and invite compassion to flow really naturally on the breath and see how that feels as a as a way to practice compassion so um so so happy we're all here cozy in the rain on this Sunday morning and I invite you to close your eyes and those of you uh online getting comfortable wherever you are and it's really nice because the breath will be the anchor to find a posture that feels relaxed but awake this is a practice of really waking up up to the True Heart nature to the nature that is here and available so see what it's like to move into a posture that feels awake especially in the chest region if you want to open the chest a bit expand open the heart center and just see how that feels physically as a way to warm up and open so just landing and resting in the warmth of the body the weight of the body in the room in the most natural and relaxed way possible yeah the body you are already here present so allowing all the time you need for that truth to be felt just resting and landing and you can find the the safe and simple place to land for yourself this morning already available just some region or area of the body where it feels pretty easy relatively easy to just connect to feel and to rest perhaps just the placement of the hands dropping deep down into the weight of the body connected to the chair the floor the Earth resting in that that connection whatever feels best and natural and as you begin to land and settle just a bit into the truth of this moment this body see what it's like to just release any preferences any expectations allowing the mind to unburden to release and just open take a moment as you settle to give yourself a lot of credit for coming this morning it is no small thing and as a way to direct your practice this morning to tune into perhaps the Deep good heart that brought you here what that is about feeling into tuning into the deep and wholesome intentions honoring them and giving them space and is I was I was saying if you like you can if you haven't already you can begin to rest in the flow of the breath already here and there's no need of course to manipulate or control the breath you can take a few deep cleansing breaths really drinking in deeply the flow of the breath really feeling the sensations in the belly and throughout the lungs the tip of the nose really warming up the sensations the flow of the breath in the body really feeling connecting resting whatever helps support as a way to settle a bit more fully you can allow the awareness of the breath to resonate with these Sensations that are particularly Rel relaxing and easeful and soothing allow the breath to breathe you allow the breath to do all of the work for you now if it feels best just to rest in the breath in this way excuse me please know that you can just stay with that but if it feels comfortable and welcome you can allow the flow of the breath to gently move into the Heart Center flowing into the Heart Center wherever that is located for you where there can be qualities of warmth and connection compassion and kindness and sit back just a little bit really sitting back and allow the breath to flow and connect to and uh open and warm up the heart region letting the heart be soothed and nerous nished by the breath and just noticing if there are any Sensations as you do so perhaps the heart feels closed or numb or perhaps the heart feels more open and warm either way just allowing the breath to flow in to connect and to tune into the heart this morning where is the heart at and letting that be with every breath and as a way to allow the breath to be a very natural flow of compassion if you like you can focus the awareness of the breath as it flows in in and out of the heart the lungs are literally nestling the heart holding the heart you can incline the awareness a bit more directly into the flow of the in breath just inclining to the flow as it actually feels right now not in the abstract but in truth feeling the in breath and allowing that to be a flow of compassion and understanding that is Flowing towards you and is all for you without limit as natural and abundant and available as this breath that flows naturally and as you drink in the breath letting it nourish and replenish the heart perhaps that in any way for you at this moment of your life is heavy with any challenge or suffering of any kind this is true for all of us and simply allow the breath as it flows in to be aonic a river of compassion all for you all for you the flow of compassion can go to those those nooks and crannies in the heart those knots those places of fear and worry and loss simply allow it to flow there with love wherever it needs to flow now once again if this feels quite rich and important please stay with the in breath primarily it's really for you to know in the way that only you can know in relationship to your own heart but if thought the heart feels relatively balanced and resourced you can allow the awareness to flow to the out breath primarily now and just notice what it's like to feel the out breath as it flows out of the heart and this can be an outflow of compassion if it feels approp at and natural you can bring to mind anyone who in your life that you care about who perhaps is in need of some of this flow of some of this kind of deep love and care in response to any struggle and you can allow the out breath to be a tangible viscal experience flowing from your heart outward towards that being yeah and see how it feels to be connected in compassion through the breath just resting in that flow naturally let the breath do all of that for you tapping into the ocean of compassion there perhaps e and then and the last uh option for this practice is to for these last minutes to rest in the full length of the breath just as it is allowing it to continue to be a flow of deep and natural compassion and with every in breath that is all for you all for you drinking it in as you breathe in naturally and as you breathe out see what it's like to allow it to flow outward as far or as close as wide or as singular as feels right resting in a notion of compassion for it's also really nice when we practice together to allow this flow of compassion to be supported by the tangible sense of us all practicing together all breathing the same breath together in compassion for ourselves and others including also all of you online connecting us with everyone here in in the space breathing together and see if you can really invite that connection as support support with every breath for I'd like to end um by offering this poem by Mark nepo it is called just opening having loved enough and lost enough I am no longer searching just opening no longer trying to make sense of pain but trying to be a soft and sturdy home in which real things can land these are the irritations that rub into a pearl so we can talk a while but then we must listen the way rocks listen to the Sea and we can churn at all that goes is wrong but then we must lay down all distractions and water every living seed and yes on nights like tonight I to feel alone but seldom do I face it squarely enough to see that it is a door into the endless breath that has no breather into the surf that human shells call the divine [Music] [Music] and look the sun has come out even with my eyes closed I noticed that the sun came out like Midway through it's kind of beautiful so enjoying that um so I'm not sure the format that Trudy teaches here but um I wanted to know everyone's names but I'm not quite sure how to do that online as well but I think what I'll do is um just offer some words on compassion is that does is there a tense to be a go around where people say their names or no no for those of you who okay because I want so much to bring you all in for your voices to be in the room not just mine you know this is such a community such a collective experience um but I'd like to talk about uh compassion a bit and then we'll open it up to questions and maybe getting to know you all a little bit more opening it also to questions online compassion is such a profound um topic and um so what I'd like to do is just kind of give a basic definition although I'm sure many of you who've been practicing for a while have a sense of this and then I want to establish a little bit of nuance and hopefully um and give you some stories that might illuminate kind of how this can flow how it how it flows for me in my life um so compassion is really best described as many of you know it's one of the Brahma vajar and uh Brahma vajar is uh translated is it's beautiful it's so beautiful it's translated as being a kind of a Heavenly Abode a safe house for the heart isn't it beautiful to know that these things exist for us um and compassion of course is the heart's refuge in direct response to moments of suffering so when is that not the case I ask you you know it's so prevalent so it's such a profound thing and and the Brahma baharas I am going to talk about analio how many of you know the venerable analio he's a famous teacher uh in our tradition he's a scholar and I'm going to reference him a little bit on his definition but he talks about the brah of aaras in this really beautiful way using U the metaphor of the Sun and he says that uh for instance the sun rising at dawn is mudita is sympathetic Joy it's this shining up towards others right and loving kindness is these are the four Brahma baharas I'm sure all of you know this I take it that you do and uh no oh the for Bram of a heart no okay it's a I'm going to focus on compassion but the other Heavenly abodes for the heart is mudita it's sympathetic Joy it's really taking part in celebrating uh the joy of others right I'm not going to focus on that but that's the sun rising it's very beautiful and then the sun um at at noon in the top of the sky is love and kindness It's just just this really simple beautiful light of uh wishing Goodwill to others of of really uh friendly wishes of Goodwill to ourselves and others and then compassion is the sun setting isn't that beautiful there's something kind of Bittersweet about that isn't it you know the the way that it can shine deep down into the clouds those deep rich colors it's the setting sun it's the day ending right and then the the fourth uh Brahma bajara is equinity and um this is this Balan State um uh of being with the truth of things uh with more wisdom uh more perspective and it the image of that is the moon the full moon in the at night isn't that beautiful so in a way these words saying these words they they point to very deep qualities of the heart and so I like the images because it helps us kind of drop into it just a little bit more so I'll focus on compassion which is that sunset in the heart right and um compassion is the heart's response to any uh suffering that may arise for ourselves and others and uh you know it's considered one of the primary foundational wings of practice maybe some of you have heard this that the practice really starts to fly like the wings of a bird and that One Wing is wisdom and the other Wing is compassion and that these two practices are so foundational that it is only then when these two practices really start to live in us start to flow in our lives that our practice starts to fly in this way and so the first wing of course is wisdom and that's where we start to land into the present moment into things as they are it is a waking up into the truth of things as they are how many of you kind of know what I mean by that through your practice it's why a lot of people don't practice because they're like whoa do you know you know what I mean right oh oh I don't know if I want to know that do you know what I mean it takes courage to wake up with wisdom to the truth of things the truth is that nothing lasts there is really nothing to hold on to nothing is reli no external conditions are not reliable or sustainable for true happiness like we do you ever feel like you're trying to hold on and it's like quicksand you know it's true that's the way things are and we wake up to that oh my goodness I can't really hold on to anything wow that's profound right nothing lasts things things are constantly changing and there's the nature of things being unsatisfactory um you know it's very rare that moments perfectly align to our wishes when does that happen anybody very rarely right and we're navigating this truth all the time the satisfactoriness the impermanence that it's not personal all these things so it can be painful when we start to wake up as things as they are which is why the other wing of compassion has to be there compassion shows up it's the juiciness of our practice it keeps it juicy it keeps the heart and it allows it's almost like the glue because it's a refuge to the truth of things as they are so that we can stay with with things as they are with love and that the heart can radically open that love allows us to really transform in those moments so that you can see it's just essential doesn't it make sense that we need that compassion we need that heart peace in order to be with things as they are and in fact it is the portal in which we transform and become liberated so compassion is a very profound uh practice um I think what's nice to and I wanted to bring the venerable in alio um he has a great book I highly recommend it compassion and emptiness it's beautiful book on compassion early Buddhist Meditation so often what can happen with compassion practice uh for all of us is that when we do uh meet suffering how many of you notice this that it can be a downward spiral that we become flooded with suffering that it's a downer how many of you have experienced that and that when we start to open our hearts with what we think is compassion practice we become flooded with suffering right and then we're like ah I'm drowning in this this is really I can't stay afloat how is this a Heavenly Abode for my heart I don't understand right so um the venerable analo he makes a very clear distinction that when we're practicing compassion we're not focusing so so much on the suffering which yes we're feeling that enough we've got our toe into the truth of that but then for it to be true compassion we're actually shifting into the wish the compassionate wish that we be free of the suffering that ourselves and others will be free of it so it's the wish compassion is the wish that we be free from it so I just want to read from here because it's beautiful he says compassion is concerned with the other being being free from affiliation this also is true for ourselves for ourselves as well being free from affiliation or from Affliction the wish for them to be free from suffering it's important because mentally dwelling on the actual suffering would be contemplation of Dua do you see that it's not about wallowing and drowning in Dua it's feeling it and then letting the heart open with the wish that there can be total freedom from that he says the cultivation of compassion itself however Finds Its expression in the wish for the other to be free from suffering or for oneself I want to say in this way the mind takes the vision of freedom from Affliction is the object such a such an object can generate a positive at times even joyful State of Mind instead of resulting in sadness it is undertaken with a positive or even joyful mind isn't this beautiful to hear that it can be an experience of joy and uh what and this kind of dovetails into present day neuroscience and understanding and I want to differentiate too this is kind of pointing to what analio is saying that there is a difference and I want to make this distinction as well because this is where we can fall prey into uh being flooded there is a difference between empathy and compassion so I just want to take a moment so that to fine-tune this so that you for yourself can also tune into this and really experience the benefits the power of compassion so empathy is that experience and I'm sure you all know it being with a friend or someone or even in the world and what's happening is that you feel someone else's suffering as it's your own you guys know what I mean by that you're really feel you're putting yourself in someone else issues you're feeling what someone else is feeling this is empathy now this is a a very powerful beautiful affiliative uh experience but it can be a downward spiral right compassion is empathy plus love it is this element of active loving that transforms it into an experience of Joy an experience of positive um affiliation they've actually done um you know research Arch on the brain of people that and they've done these studies where they've shown that when people are in states of empathy of empathic resonance with someone who's suffering what it shows is that part the parts of the brain that light up um are really associated with more negative emotions with more negative experiences so it kind of shows that that's true and then when they were able to help people connect to compassion passion also in relation to suffering what happened is completely different brain regions uh lit up isn't this beautiful to know that there's really something to this that when we tap into compassion these more positive regions of the brain do light up and it's an upward spiral it actually is an experience of um of the possibility that we can all be free and compassion of course is for the flow to ourselves and to others right how many of you in compassion and I'll just get a get a sense of this even from those online how many of you feel that you can kind of open to this feeling of joy and compassion for others more easily than yourself how many of you notice that yeah it's typical and you know I guess they've done research on this too and 80% of the people that's the case and so sometimes we do have to learn and in that practice ice that I offered did you see how the breath flows to our self and outward as natural and as equal do you see how that is it's the same for these heart practices it's as natural and available as the breath and we learn to kind of allow this to flow to ourselves as well so I wanted to tell some stories about compassion just to bring this to life a little bit and then we'll open it up to questions but I think rather than me just talking kind of about this but I hope that's really helpful in terms of differentiating between empathy and compassion right that we begin to start to feel into this the difference of this um so and I know Jack corfield he tells you know when we start to tap into compassion it is this way of kind of waking up almost as if he talks about it as being kind of waking up from a blindness that our hearts often when we're on automatic pilot we don't see the depth in the truth of what's really going on he tells this story about your you know he uses this story of walking out of the grocery store and you've got two heavy bags of groceries and you're walking and you're you know trying to get to your car and somebody comes out of left field and runs into you and bangs and the groceries just go all over the ground right and of course what happens you get mad right you get frustrated and there's this like you know natural habitual tendency to kind of say ah and turn to that person say what the hell are you doing and in turning there's this moment where you realize the person that has run into you is actually blind how does that change your experience of that all of a sudden for most of us anyway that anger that aversion it melts away with that heartfelt experience of compassion and seeing that oh my goodness this person's experience is just not what I understood it to be and all of the anger goes away and you go to help that person and you pick it up and that moment is transformed right from aversion into a shared sense of oh my goodness I had no idea right and this is where we start to see with eyes of compassion and it does liberate our suffering we are less prone to these uh these uh more reactive states of mind and I have a story that I'd like to share that was kind of experience of this for me like an experience of compassion um and I have two airport stories it's my story and then I want to share with you a poem um so uh I was at the airport uh airport is a good place for practice if any of you noticed that it's just a really right place for practice in all kinds of levels and I think I was actually coming home from a retreat so I was still kind of very Mindful and I was waiting at the gate we were waiting we were all waiting at the gate you know to PL to to board the plane and there was a man sitting next to me and we were all just sitting together strangers of course and the man sitting next to me was on his cell phone and he was speaking very loudly into the cell phone like really loudly like very loud and it was irritating right it was kind of like why is he talking so loud and what happened was in the collective space of everyone sitting there waiting right for our plane is that um you could see and do you all know in like in Collective spaces whether there be public or personal do you ever get a mood in a sense that starts like a wave of like irritation that starts to move through the space and so that's what happened and I noticed it happening where everybody got really irritated with this gentleman right and everybody was looking at each other and eye rolling and going oh you know and it became kind of like this this dooka wave you know and and everybody was just going a and like uh you know and it was this Collective thing you guys know right and um often I like to practice where I tune into the field the collective field and I see where it's at and you know how these things are contagious how easily we get swept into these kinds of waves of uh of the field and my practice sometimes is to feel what that is but to really not get caught and not go with the more UNH wholesome kind of field and to drop down into my practice and to kind of regulate myself and not get pulled into that because I don't want to contribute to UNH wholesome States right so I'm sitting there so I kind of sit back I see everyone's very irritated and I sit back and I kind of become a little bit more Mindful and what I notice when he's talking very loudly into the phone that I hadn't noticed before until I kind of settled in was that he was talking very loudly but he was so happy he was really happy talking to this person it was like he was just really enjoying this conversation even though he was so loud and um I I was like oh he's happy it it kind of changed it for me and I was like wow wow okay that's great and it didn't bother me so much do you know what I mean by that it kind of was like great I'm glad he's happy and then so I'm okay with this and then they call our plane to board and um everybody starts standing up including this gentleman next to me and what I notice is that he starts to walk away and he's walking in the wrong direction he's not walking towards the gate and I noticed that he's blind and suddenly I want to cry it just it just was such an emotional thing that I hadn't realized that about him and he was walking the wrong way and so I started to walk and I've got some attendants that you know were working at the at the gate and we all went over to him and we gently kind of guided him back and I have to say he was a very joyful person and he was so happy for the help and we just started and it's and the whole wave of compassion just started to flow throughout the gate and as we walked him to the gate there was this recognition of everybody that you could watch as they noticed the truth that he was blind and the compassion it's like the whole thing shifted and there was and everyone started helping him and it was just a and everybody you could see people catching themselves like I did and go oh my my goodness you know we don't really know what's really going on with anybody do we do you know what I mean and often if you can fall into statements of judgment or reversion it's a deep practice to kind of sit back and wonder my goodness I wonder what is really going on with that person you know and it just kind of helps check that and there can be an opportunity for you for our hearts to open with compassion to um to others who perhaps are causing unskillfully causing suffering for themselves or others and it can shift the field it can shift your heart and you suffer less and it can transform that experience the last thing I wanted to read and maybe some of you have heard this do do does anyone here know the uh poet Naomi shib NY does anyone know her she's beautiful poet she is um she is a Palestinian background and she has it's called a poem but it's another airport experience of compassion and I'm just going to end with this let me see what time it is and then I'd like to open it up so that we can explore this together so you have any questions or sharing about compassion practice but this is another uh kind of uh beautiful way to describe that when we do tap into compassion it is joyful it's active it's a verb it's responsive it's really it's holding suffering with love it's holding it's feeling but holding with love um but it is responsive and it can shift and change um any moment um and so this is called gate A4 so it's another airport practice story so she says wandering around the Albuquerque Airport terminal after learning my flight had been delayed for 4 hours I heard an announcement if anyone in the vicinity of gate A4 understands any Arabic please come to the gate immediately well one pauses these days gate A4 was my own gate I went there an older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress just like my grandmother wore was crumpled on the floor wailing help help she's crying she said to the flight agent and the flight agent says please please talk to her what is her problem she's wailing on the floor we told her the flight was going to be late and she did this I stopped to put my arm around the woman and I spoke haltingly and then this is some Arabic that I cannot pronounce and the minute she heard any words she knew however poorly used she stopped crying she thought that the flight had been cancelled entirely she needed to be in El Paso for a major medical treatment the next day I said no no no we're fine you'll get there just later who's packing who's who's picking you up let's call him we called her son I spoke to him in English I told him I would stay with with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to her she talked to him then we called her other Sons just for the fun of it then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic it's so it's so sweet and found out of course that they had 10 shared friends then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her this took up to 2 hours isn't this beautiful do you feel do you feel how this is something that perhaps we can all tap into with the right heart quality um she was laughing a lot by then telling of her life patting my knee answering questions she had pulled a sack of homemade Mamu cookies little powdered sugar crumbly Mounds stuffed with dates and nuts from her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate to my amazement not a single woman declined it was like a Sacrament The Traveler from Argentina the mom from California I it makes me emotional I have to pause because um I guess it makes me sad about all the division that we have in the world right now you know so I think this is like to me um it it represents a um a profound opportunity and possibility it is that compassionate wish that we all come together right that we understand that we're all together so I think this is why it's particularly moving to me because I think my heart is heavy with this I don't know if you are too right anyway let me try to get through this okay it was like a Sacrament The Traveler from Argentina the mom from California the lovely woman from Laredo we were all covered with the same powdered sugar and smiling I wish I had those I she' have brought these cookies to share she have passed out cookies so I'll taste the sweetness of that there is no better cookie and then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powder sugar too is that beautiful and I knew I noticed my new best best friend by now we were holding hands and I and she had a potted plat poking out of her bag a poted plant poking out of her bag some medicinal thing with green furry leaves such an old country tradition always carry a plant always stay rooted to somewhere isn't that beautiful yeah and I looked around the Gate of late and weary ones and I thought this is the world I want to live in the shared World ah not a single person in the gate once the crying of confusion stopped seemed apprehensive about any other person they took the cookies I wanted to hug all those other women too this can still happen anywhere not all As lost so I'm sorry uh but maybe not All Is Lost in in in compassion do you feel the power of it and the beauty of it and the positiveness of it and that in fact we're not drowning we are replenishing and we're feeding and nourishing each other through this practice I would say that it is like a nourishment I would say it's like drinking at a at a at an oasis you know it's like that um so I hope that that's a beautiful story isn't it and doesn't it kind of capture better better than anything I could say how deep this could be and you know you walk out the door today and think of the possibility in the supermarket right in the most ordinary places how we can begin to connect and understand and be responsive and and connect in ways that feel appropriate so it's a practice that compassion is a practice we can do formally in terms of inclining the heart in this direction in the practice that I offered the breath where it can flow to ourselves and to others right that we allow it to be a flow and then it can also be very alive as you go about your day really tuning into this quality of the heart and exploring and seeing where it can flow like those powdered cookies right

Channel: InsightLA Meditation

Views: 111

Keywords: meditation, buddhism, truth, inner guidance, mindfulness, trust, mindfulness meditation, sobriety, anxiety, stress reduction, wellness, depression, guided meditation, buddhist, health, buddha, religion, communication, insight meditation, vipassana, trudy goodman, trudy goodman Kornfield, self-compassion, trudy goodman meditation, jack kornfield, kornfield, joseph goldstein, sharon salzberg, sharon salzberg meditation, jon kabat zinn, jon kabat zinn mindfulness, los angeles, california

Id: Gn2TPLIFd9Y

Length: 76min 3sec (4563 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 25 2024