Living compassion in daily life is accessible to all of us in many ways--with simple moments of awareness in the food we eat, with the people we speak to, in the community we share, and with the loving self-awareness we provide for ourselves and others daily. Simple enough. Can we do it?
Over this past year, I have sought the deeper 
meaning of compassion. Pema Chodron's article on "Turning toward Pain" came at a crucial moment digging frantically through a drawer. She shared insight from an interview she had with his Holiness the Dalai Lama and a group of meditation facilitators in New York City . They asked him to comment on the Western world's crazy notion that it's not OK to like ourselves. We practice self-hatred. His holiness was astounded by this idea.
The practice of self hatred is self learned in our primary families, as well as in our school systems, school yards and eventually our adult play grounds where we are socialized to compete to be the best--and to strive in whatever way we can to feel good about ourselves. Fundamentally we don't think we are - we feel something is terribly wrong. As a consequence we are doled out and practice destructive behavioural patterns, all in a crazy desperate need to feel better about ourselves. "Our stories" make up a number of destructive patterns we have learned from earlier childhood, expressing one predominantly or behaving with more than one at any given time. We sabotage, abandon or invade in order to feel safe, we deprive rather than share abundance, we feel unclean or bad and practice rigid hygiene to compensate, we betray in fear of being betrayed or trusting, or we make others and ourselves feel inadequate or bad, verses simply sharing feelings of goodness.
The good news is that in the same way we learn these destructive patterns we can undo them, too, through relationships -with our families, with ourselves and with our friends; those we care for deeply. Pema teaches the practice of daily loving compassion. When these feelings arise, without grasping or denying them, Pema advises us to hold every sad thought, grievance, irritation, negativity, aggression, disappointment or fear with love. Be with them. Watch them dissolve. Over time, the limiting beliefs we hold about ourselves and the perceptions we have projected on to the world will manifest in more loving and kind ways. Compassion is self respect, practicing healthy boundaries with self and for others. Compassion is a deep felt sense that we are whole and good. Compassion is self love.
With this guidance I have embraced a mindful practice, with both za-zen (seated meditation) and in daily life--listening to and paying attention for my words and actions. Learning to stop when the triggers arise and observe them for what they are--what am I reacting too, feeling? What negative or limiting belief is hidden beneath this reaction? What holds me stuck in this unhealthy pattern?
I allow the inner story to unfold, I give it space (this can mean five minutes or five days or a year) to seek another way to say or be, with myself or another without the already, always way of being.
I am giving space for what Robert Johnson in his book SHE shares in his compelling analogy on the Reality of love. Realistic love comes with finding self both "the lover and the beloved within", the he and the she---no longer needing to project onto our loved ones our un-realized selves. We find wholeness deep from within.
Here are six ways you can practice loving compassion at home:
Accept life just as it is
Offer loving kindness toward yourself and others
Give up judgment
Find things to be grateful for each day
Still the mind long enough to do so
Be of service to others, even in the smallest ways
Lorraine Gane, friend, poet and teacher, shares compassion is the highest form of love. "Whatever is held with love becomes love, becomes itself once again, for everything was created from love and returns to love."
Fall Herbal Recipe to Nourish and Warm You
(As an avid herbalist I further extend the practise of compassion to the foods and herbs we eat. The fall months are an ideal time to nourish yourselves -a time to replenish and store energy for the coming colder months. Eating foods rich in grounding and warming nutrients benefits kidney and lung chi. The fall is the time to go inward and store vital chi, with delicious root vegetables and or fish and miso broths or stir fry with colourful squash, radiant beets and sweet potatoes. Rosemary, cardamom, parsley and ginger stimulate our bodies' natural warmth. Try this fall herbal recipe to nourish and warm you.
Take a handful each of dried burdock root, oatstraw, hawthorn leaf and berry, parsley, cardamom and ginger. Take 1 tbsp. to a large cup of boiled water. Steep for 15 mins. and enjoy up to three times a week. This brew is also preventive of flues and colds. It will build your own natural immunity.)
Dharani, Andree Beauchamp - Holistic Health Practitioner CNHP, Intuitive and Herbalist RH, teaches yoga , offers herbal workshops & sees clients at the Lila centre in Kingston Ontario .
See www. lilacentre.ca / www.dharanihealingarts.com 613 542 6878
