A Loving Practice
In Raymond Carver’s short story What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, a cardiologist, gathering with friends, tells a story. An elderly couple is in a car accident, their conditions critical. After the doctors do all they can with the broken bones, lacerations and other assorted injuries, the couple rests in the same room together and both seem to improve. The woman requires extra attention and is wheeled to another room for additional care. Unable to see his wife through his facial bandages, the husband begins to suffer.
May all beings be happy…
I quit my social media addiction during the insurrection. It just seemed like time. Past time, really. Recently, I went back for a few scrolls. The snapshot? Vaccinated and unvaccinated were screaming at one another. Ok, maybe they weren’t screaming. But it seemed like it. I didn’t scroll long. I sent well wishes to the vaccinated, well wishes to the unvaccinated.
May all beings be healthy…
A friend shared with me some of her theories on trauma. One gem: there is so much unrecognized and unaddressed trauma that we have lost our ability to be nuanced and subtle. I thought of a picture I had seen during the 2020 election cycle. A burly biker in leather, his female companion with a “F*ck Your Feelings” t shirt. Is that what unaddressed trauma looks like? The muscles, jacket, bike, and slogan-splashed shirt all layers of protection, covering past hurt?
May all beings be safe…
According to a 2017 Yale study, people are more empathetic when they feel safe. The less safe people felt before age four, the less tolerant of immigrants and others they tend to be later in life. In the study, people who read safety-based meditations and Nidra scripts displayed more empathetic responses in surveys afterward. The pandemic has been the greatest societal fear event of my lifetime. Everybody seems fearful of something, whether it has been the virus, vaccinations, being without toilet paper, the exhalation of others. We may be going through a lot, even without a pandemic. Time still remains to cut everyone some slack.
May all beings know peace…
Perhaps the fear response to 9/11 was war. Afghanistan was known as a “graveyard of empires” before the U.S. arrived. Some see war as an act of great strength. I see it as a failure of imagination.
May all beings find freedom…
During a yoga therapy module, a teacher asked us to scribble down three negative qualities about ourselves. How quickly my responses flowed, like water finding the path of least resistance. We were then asked to scribe three positive attributes about ourselves. Long, uncomfortable moments passed before I could scratch something together. A paradigm shift I wished for in society: to value empathy, love and compassion in others above the amount of their paychecks, square footage of their homes, or model of their cars. How can I expect others to collectively value these things if I am not valuing them in myself?
May all beings move through this world with ease…
I recently ended a yoga class with this loving-kindness meditation. Within moments, elsewhere in the 804 area code, my stepson was shot twice in the head. Thankfully, with the blessings of many, he is recovering. He was called a miracle by the hospital nurses. His friend was not so fortunate. With hindsight, my intentions of loving-kindness seemed hollow, not enough, woefully inept.
Eventually, my thoughts turned to the shooter. I wondered if I could send loving-kindness to him. Or to the person with the GUNS SAVE LIVES bumper sticker I saw shortly thereafter. The intention is meant for "all" people, not just a selected few, not just the ones who look or think like us, not just the ones we deem easy to love.
Because love isn’t always easy. Some may have given up on it. Think it’s not practical. Or shift to loving a few, which may be challenging enough, rather than loving the many, which may seem implausible, if not impossible.
I still believe in the power of forgiving ourselves, in the power of forgiving others. Sometimes I think of love as an invisible force, a kind of cosmic glue of the universe, stitched within the fabric of everything. It keeps the seams together, even with the relentless flapping, even when it all might seem too much. I try to not be too mushy about love. But the spiritual practices of yoga, and all spiritual teachers for that matter, seem to beat upon the same drum. We are not separate. Studies show we all do better in a community. Like the husband in the Carver story, we suffer when separated. The verdict in the landmark spiritual case “Us vs. Them” seems to be that we are both. There is no other. The other is you.
A suggested practice:
What loving and kind thing can you do for yourself today?
What loving and kind thing can you do for someone else today?
Rinse and repeat.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be healthy. May all beings be safe. May all beings know peace, find freedom, and move through this world with ease.