What kind of seeds are you planting and tending with your words and your deeds? Every seed watered can become something that changes the world. If you want to practice, take a walk and look at the buds on the trees in the spring. Each bud is an answer to despair or apathy. You start to sense you are part of something so much bigger. Feel the survival of thousands of years of ancestors in your bones supporting you.
“Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”—Thoreau
In times of difficulty and change, it is important to orient to what doesn't change, what is deathless. This talk gives you some tools/reminders on how to access the one unchanging thing. The talk also offers ways to unhook from your story and the mind's constant narrative.
Contemplating the internal experience of “me” and the way “me” reacts with external phenomena reveals how our identity is constantly manufactured by our reactions. Widening and relaxing supports a heart that is modest, clear and open, without stress and without identity; a heart that can comfortably meet and deal with what arises.
Tonglen is a guided meditation of Tibetan origin that is a reparative response to pain. It is a meditation that actually helps create connection in the midst of suffering. Tenzin Choedrak, during his time of torture, made a daily dedication, "May some human greatness be accomplished through this suffering."
