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According to my understanding, mercy is one the most outstanding spiritual virtues. Mercy is different from forgiveness. When somebody does something wrong to me I forgive that person. I do not counteract and I do not hold onto it. I let go. In mercy, I act and and offer my helping hands to help the person with kindness in my heart. Mercy involves forgiveness but it goes beyond forgiveness.
Mercy has three elements: Paying attention, having empathy, and acting-taking steps to help the person who did something wrong. My heart was deeply hurt by someone whom I deeply and passionately loved. She did not show empathy when I was deeply suffering. It was a very painful experience for me to go through. I needed time to recover and heal. I did not hold on to my pain. I worked on it mindfully. I have let go of my resentment and I am relating to the person who caused pain in me with in a loving and kind way. I felt peace in me . Showing mercy to oneself and to others heals wounds of oneself and others. Mercy can be cultivated and sustained by empathy, kindness and compassion and that's how I deal with suffering caused to others by me and by others to me. May we relate to ourselves and others in our life with loving kindness! Namaste!
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Every thought arises in mind. Mind is the birthplace of all kinds thoughts and emotions - good, ugly and bad. If I get attached to them and get stuck with them they occupy my clear and empty space. In other words I become possessed by my thoughts and emotions.
Thoughts and emotions are ephemeral. They come and go unless I hold on to them adding more and more Karmik patterns and I get bound by such patterns. If I do not hold on to them they will be eventually dissolve. My mind will have emptiness like a clear sky with no clouds. In the empty and clear sky of mind, unconditional love and compassion naturally arise giving birth to joy, peace and fulfillment. It takes time to wake up depending how long I have been sleeping. Practicing awareness has helped me not to go back to sleep but to remain awake. Practicing mindfulness in everyday life keeps me awake and free from the grip of craving and grasping. Candid reflections on getting stuck with self-created bondage helps me make wholesome decisions. This is the way I relate to what Dilgo Khyentse Rinpocha writes about thoughts, Thoughts Are No Thoughts. Namaste! As I was reading this writing by The Gnostic Writer my mind was fully present with what I was reading. My awareness of being fully present with what I was reading is an example of being here and now. Being here and now is the existential reality. My mind is not split by going to the past or thinking about the future. I am in the awakened mindset. My mind is not hijacked either by the past or the future.
My father compared such a here-and-now mindset with clear sky with no clouds. As I am reading this passage my mind is fully present with what I am reading. My mind is not wandering. It is focused. It feels like I am in the flow without any pull or push coming from the past or the future. I am in the fully awakened state of my mind and heart. Not sleeping mentally or dreaming about the future keeps me anchored in the flow of awareness-awareness of here and now. Do I remain in this state all the time? I wish I could. The monkey mind wanders. Mindfulness of the monkey mind brings me back to the flow of here and now. And that is an awakened mind focused on the here and now consciousness. May we all cultivate skills of mindfulness to be in the here-and-now consciousness! Namaste! Below is my reflection to the excerpt of the conversation between bell hooks and Sharon Salzberg.
We are born with a capacity to love. It is like a seed in the soil. And the seed needs to be watered to grow. When a child is born, that child has an innate capacity to love. The child needs to be nurtured so that the child's innate capacity to love blossoms. I was born in a family in which there were four brothers and three sisters. We all looked different and we all have different dispositions, aptitudes and attitudes. We never felt discriminated and were never treated differently. We were accepted as we were. Where does love exist? it exists and thrives in our hearts. And like a seed it needs loving kindness, compassion and support from the significant others in our family and from the community we live in. Sadly, the world is broken down that us-and-them binary is a part of the work of love. I am cognizant of the binary. I recognize it without being bound by this divisiveness. I have refused to go along with this mentality and I have cultivated loving kindness in me. This way of thinking and living has enkindled the light of seeing oneness in manyness. Such a way of living fills my heart with courage, compassion and love. At times discrimination is beaming in my direction because of ignorance and conditioned mindset. I have learned not to wear the clothes that do not belong to them without reacting to other's discriminatory behaviors. May we cultivate seeds of love, courage and compassion for those who throw stones of hatred and discrimination at me. This is what Jesus the Christ and the compassionate Buddha have taught us. Namaste! How to deal with children (and adults too) when emotions run high? We want to do the right thing. But there is a difference between wanting to do right and actually having the wherewithal to carry it right. Good parenting involves intelligence as well as it involves emotion.
Research studies show that even more than IQ, our emotional awareness and ability to handle feelings, and to empathize with others determine our success and happiness in all walks of life, including family relationships. “Family life is our first school for emotional learning,” writes Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence...The emotional schooling operates not just the parents say and do directly to children , but also in the models they offer for handling their own feelings and those that pass between husband and wife.” Parents who are involved with their feelings are called “Emotional Coaches”. Much like athletic coaches, they teach their children strategies to deal with life’s ups and downs. They do not object to their children’s displays of anger, sadness, or fear. Nor do they ignore them. They use emotional moments as opportunities for teaching their kids important life lessons and building close relationships with them. Among the parents who fail to teach their kids emotional intelligence, research studies have identified three types:
Research studies have found five steps of successful parent-child interactions:
Empathy Empathy is the key for understanding and improving difficult relationships. Dr. Helen Reiss has created E.M.P.A.T.H.Y. acronym for creating healthy interpersonal relationships in her book Empathy Effect. She has described the following Seven Keys to Empathy: E for Eye Contact: When we look at each other empathically we get connected with each other without words. As the saying goes, “ Eyes are the windows in another person’s soul.” Such a gaze releases a sort of bonding hormone, oxytocin. Feelings of love, connection, and empathy flood into the gray matter of the brain. It also activates the social brain regions. M for Muscles of the facial expressions: Our brain is wired to automatically mimic the facial expressions of others in normal situations. When someone smiles at us, we tend to smile back. P for Posture: A person’s posture reveals a great deal about internal emotional states. Slumped shoulders may signal dejection, sadness and even depression. Sitting up tall and upright suggests confidence or happiness. A for Affect: The human face is a critical guide in knowing the emotions a person is experiencing- positive feelings or negative feelings. Research shows that we can cultivate self-compassion and compassion for others in our life. It is not enough to notice a person’s feelings and needs but how we relate to his needs and feelings is very crucial in relationships. T for Tone of voice: Research shows tone of voice conveys over 38 percent of the nonverbal emotional content. It’s a vital key to empathy. Linguists refer to the pace, rhythm, and pitch of spoken language as “prosody”. Prosody infuses a layer of emotion to the spoken word. Become aware of what you convey by the way you communicate: admiration, sarcasm, contempt, surprise, fear or disgust. The tone of the voice reveals if there is empathic communication. H for Hearing the whole person: Active or reflective listening is called “empathic listening” which means paying attention to the other person. Identifying his or her emotions and responding with compassion without judgment. Neurologically speaking, it means tamping down our own amygdala. Nothing productive happens when two people are in “the red zone”. It’s important that both persons agree to take turns to speak. It’s called “talk-listen” by clinical psychologists. Y for Your response: With deep listening comes an empathic response. When you listen to someone empathically, you resonate with the feelings of others. Questions to reflect on:
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References: 1. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman PH.D. 2. The Heart of Parenting by John Gottman PH.D. 3. Empathy Effect by Helen Reiss MD Below is my reflection after reading the article by Tracy Cochran:
Facing the unknown with an open mind and an open heart is exciting with a little trepidation and uncertainty of what will be unfolding. Here is the place for unflinching faith. When I place my self in the hands of the unknown and unseen noble forces with faith, something will emerge that will heal my emotional scars and will make me whole. Whenever I have felt cracks in my life I have placed myself in the forgiving and saving hands of the Divine Being by letting go of my ego-built house. It has not been easy to let go of my attachments and to let my heart open with the hope and faith in the advent, coming of the liberating hands of the Divine. The unshaken shraddha of faith dispel my self-created darkness and wakes me up to see the rays of Divine light. What helps me wake up from my slumber of ignorance is faith or shraddha in the ever present and never forsaking light of the Divinity within me. and all around me. It gets manifested when I become still and open to receive blessings coming from noble beings and noble forces. Such forces help me remain still, awake and focused. Namaste! Below is my reflection to J.Krishnamurti's article:
How do we see ourselves and others in relationship without the psychological lenses of the past and the future, the images of myself and others, is a challenge for realizing love and beauty. If I view myself and others with the blinders of the past and future, there is neither love nor beauty. Love and beauty has no dividing lines within me and without me. I call it pure beauty and pure love or Oneness. And that indeed is the art of living. When I am present in the present moment I experience Oneness with nature and the people around me and with me. This kind of presence is beyond striving and struggling. In that way, it is effortless. It is natural. An image of myself and the other is time and space bound. It does not exist beyond time and space. It is bound by time and space. When my mind is still and quiet, I see myself and the other clearly, like the sky without self-created clouds. And that is real freedom from the known, freedom from projections, freedom from the inner shadows. May we have inner clarity and inner freedom to live in the world with love and beauty! Namaste! There are many faces of love. The most common is conditional love. It has "if" and "then". What Ram Dass is talking about is unconditional love. To put it in Ram Dass's words," It's a part of our inner being. It's love for no reason, love without an object...This is an entrance to Oneness." This is an accurate description of unconditional love. Do I love me unconditionally? Do I love the other unconditionally? When and how? My answer is Yes . All the time? Most of the time. It is a state of being, not having and doing. In Such a state I feel Oneness within me and beyond me. Walls of outward differences melt away and I breathe the pure air of love filling my heart with unbound joy and fulfillment.
My first experience of such unconditional love was with my mother whose face was shining with unconditional love. As I grew up I often experienced such love when I used to chant with my father. And the same kind of love I experienced with my beloved better half. I still feel the glow of that love though she is no more physically with me. Last night we had a Thanksgiving gathering at my daughter's house. She had put her heart in making preparations for such a joyful thankful event. She radiated the light of unconditional love. My grandson saw the tired face his mother. He left the company of his friends and went to the sink to clean pots and pans joyfully. Such acts of love and kindness divinize our daily living. Keeping my heart open for giving and receiving unconditional love, and being grateful for such divine gifts helps me to stay on the path of Being. Namaste. To live fully in the present moment without dwelling in the past or worry about the future is a wise way of living. Be here and now is the enlightened way of living. Going with the flow of life and not flowing against it the way living life fully. When I engage myself in any activity I get fully absorbed in it. My mind is not drifting but is fully rooted in the present moment. This way of living my daily life is a blessing for me. I complete my assignment fully and that way I do not get an incomplete grade. I love the way Rosie Bell puts it: We become "so lost in a plan for the future that I forget to crawl into the beautiful, imperfect present and make the most of it. This is the way I relate to Conscious Completion. Living each moment fully is the way of living with unburdened freedom from space and time. These are of the "moments of the giant miracles."
When I meditate I feel the presence of conscious completion. When I listen to chanting, relate to nature and be with someone I deeply love I feel the presence of the flow of consciousness. When my mind is distracted I crawl into the present. Self-awareness is the master key for me for entering in the house of conscious completion. The light of awareness brings me back to the path of living fully in the present moment. Living this way requires conscious determination, patience, perseverance, compassion and devotion. Such way of living creates giant miracles in living. Namaste! Below is my reflection to Richard Powers excerpt from his article:
We are social beings. Our life is connected with each other. We are all in secret kinship with each other. However, we may not always recognize it. It is like an underground stream which nourishes the tree of our life, quenches our thirst for an in-between connectedness. There have been times when I have felt disconnected with me and with others, when I felt lonely and depressed. At such time what helped me was empathic and kind words and actions from people who cared for me, who felt compassion for me and extended their helping hands to me. And there have been times when I felt their pain and I have extended my hands to them. Such experiences have deepened and enriched our relationships. I was raised in a relatively poor family. There were times when we did not have enough food to eat. There were kind neighbors who felt for us and showed their love and kindness by extending their helping hands. They embodied the teaching of Jesus Christ: Love thy neighbor like thyself. All such experiences have enriched my life. And I feel deep gratitude for them. These are precious lessons I have learned in my life. They have taught me how to extend my helping hands when someone is going through hard times. It is by giving we receive as Saint Francis of Assisi taught us. Renounce and rejoice as the ancient book of wisdom Ishavasya Upanishada taught us. Being honest and open, being empathic and compassionate, serving others when they need my help, asking for help when I need it and being grateful to them for their kindness helps me to stay on the path. Receiving and giving are the two wings of the bird of life. Namaste! |
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