Tag: child

When Kindness Prevails.

I watched a young man at the corner store; his shoulders we’re hunched, as he reached out his hand. “Please,” he begged. “Can you spare a little something to keep the last of winter away?”

His hands trembled as he watched one, then another and another, again – emerge from the shop with arms overflowing. A sundry of breakfast items, mostly – coffee, egg sandwiches and spicey fried potatoes.

As the last of the crowd shuffled through, I could see his desperation building. Though, as if on cue, a little one – not more than 7 or 8 years old – stopped to stand before him. “Where is your coat?” she asked.

“I don’t have one,” he said. And, noting the perplexed look upon her face offered, “Some folks…they just can’t afford it.”

The child’s mother clenched her jaw as she shuffled through her purse. As her eyes narrowed, the shuffling became more deliberate – almost aggressive. “I swear, they really need to do something about you people. She placed a dollar bill into his hand, “Here, this’ll get you started.”

As she turned to walk towards her car, the little one stayed. “You can have mine,” she smiled, unzipping her jacket.

Children have a way of cutting through to the heart of this world’s ‘far too complex’ problems. Issues like poverty, hunger – and, more recently, weighing into a debate on gun violence. Their thoughts are not yet jaded; they see a need, they respond. They are both the source and embodiment of a healing heart.

“Freedom and love go together,” Jiddu Krishnamurti writes. Within a child’s mind, there is no distinction. To them, the answers are simple – approach all things with the energy of compassion.

This is what I wish to share with you today, a moment to express and experience the love shared so freely here. For it’s only when our the heart is ‘right’ that we may begin to effect a change.

In peace my sweet friends…

Namaste ❣

How to Comfort Our Pain.

Someone posted recently to my timeline that love and despair were mutually exclusive; that they could not exist within the same space and time – as one caused pleasure and the other furthered our pain.

At face value, we assume this to be true. And, yet – though they are unique, there is a commonality between…as each invokes a compassionate release.

As a new mother, I would rush to comfort my crying son. I’d hold him tightly into the wee hours of morning, rocking gently and secretly pleading for it to end. Until one day when an old woman counseled me, “Let him cry, dear. This is his way of allowing the energy to dissipate.”

When I first committed to this spiritual path, I – like so many others – read books, practiced meditation and attended an unprecedented amount of lectures all in the hopes of releasing my pain. I learned the techniques, yet failed to reason.

I assumed that mindfulness required a lessening of reaction. While certainly a benefit of the longer-term haul, no amount of lecturing can ever obviate the necessity of release.

To feel pain, does not preclude our ability to feel and respond to love. Rather, together they help to deepen our awareness.

“I feel pain” is often a catalyst for pulling away. Something hurts, we wish it to end – quickly and by any means possible.

Racing to comfort my infant son was a natural and rightful reaction – though, my motivation then wasn’t clear. In my naïveté I assumed that in stopping his crying, the pain would go away. But, that’s not often the case. Isn’t it better to allow the energy to settle? That the comfort extended should serve as a benefit to this process?

Someone once shared with me that we should respond to our own pain as a ‘mother comforting her little one’ – with patience, willingness and a boundless compassion.

Yes, there is pain – but there is also love. As one recedes, a gentle nurturing effects its growth.

And, in the end, we are made whole.

As Jack Kornfield writes, “You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.”

In peace, my sweet friends…

Namaste ❤️

The Presence of Child.

“You’re making it worse,” my mother would say. And, she was right. Albeit, at the time we were discussing the snarled mess of my hair – still I think there’s a lesson to be carried forward.

A child feeling pain will instantly recoil, pulling away from that which offends. Though as we age our curiosity compels, in spite of the pain we are moved to ‘resolve’. We want to understand, to challenge – perhaps, even benefit from our circumstance.

Yet still, we impute through external factors.

Why can’t we see, that all is within? The upset, the angst – the remorse and regret. All tightly bound with the intransigent threads of intolerance and perception.

As children, we instinctively retreat. We don’t beg for its vanquish, nor challenge its source. Our only reference based deep within heart.

We see a tree, we climb. And a stream, we cross. Every moment represents a new opportunity to surrender and ultimately awaken.

In peace, my sweet friends…

Namaste ❤

A Simpler Sort of Zen.

[blockquote source=”Bill Watterson”]“Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you’re just a reflection of him?”[/blockquote]

Do you remember when an entire day could be lost inside a single mud puddle? When hours would slip into the ripplings of raindrops upon an unbroken surface? And a long stick, just perfectly crooked, was your very best ‘explorer’ friend?

I used to play for hours along that stream, lost in a wonderment that only a child’s heart could hold – and still, carried on through all these years.

Curiosity has always been my Zen. And, a good spot by the stream – my thinking space.

In those days, there was no hurrying to get ‘done.’ Rather, simplicity in purpose, ushered its very own sort of bliss.

When we were beguiled by the breaking of water, bubbling over worn rocks…and the softness of moss growing against a  hardened bark.

In those days, we didn’t so much worry about our pants getting wet.

And, our end of day was always marked by those awful mosquitoes moving in…

[blockquote source=”Karen Maezen Miller”]“Your life is your practice. Your spiritual practice does not occur someplace other than in your life right now, and your life is nowhere other than where you are. You are looking for answers, insight, and wisdom that you already possess. Live the life in front of you, be the life you are, and see what you find out for yourself.”[/blockquote]

In simpler times, there is always a simpler sort of Zen…

And, when we can connect with it – there’s just no telling what wonders it may bring.