Give up what you see with your eyes,

surrender instead to what is dark,

yet filled to the brim with life. Drink

from darkness and learn

what it means to be born anew,

tangled and mysterious, full of terror

and the bliss of all new things.

Forget what they told you was precious

and true, forget the talk, and when

you’re done with hiding from silence,

let it find you. Be like one

who lives all winter at the bottom of a pond,

empty of breath and speech and expectation,

sunk in muck, drenched with possibility.

….Kathleen Kelley

gifts of waiting…..gifts of betrayals…..gifts of forgiveness……gifts of light…..

Without understanding emptiness, compassion can never be authentic. There’s a very high chance we will confuse compassion with attachment and desire. One thinks that one’s passion is compassion, that one’s attachment to others and caring for others is true compassion. Our ordinary version of compassion and affection is selfish in a way, because it’s my family, my children. I care for them, we should enjoy ourselves together, because I love them. It is compassion in a sense, but without the understanding of emptiness it becomes very narrow, very limited. It is not passion for or attraction toward something that one loves or likes. Compassion is called the “great passion,” but it’s not the passion of latching onto something and not wanting to let go………Tsoknyi Rnpoche

repeat the sorrows

We are so quick to judge one another. And just as we are hard on others we are even harder on ourselves. With mindfulness, our natural compassion grows. We can see that we are all carrying our own burden of tears. You and everyone you meet are sharing in some measure of the pain present on the planet. You are called upon to witness this pain- in yourself and others- with compassion. But how can we do this when we live in a time where it seems we have lost contact with the power of mercy and compassion, when we have closed off to the suffering of ourselves and others?…..Jack Kornfield