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reflections: my voice  Metta Practice: Loving Kindness April 2008 “Loving Kindness is my religion.” –Dalai Lama “The power of loving-kindness is that it embraces no separation between self, others, and events, it is the affirmation and honoring of a core goodness in others and in oneself.” – Jon Kabat-Zinn During the last month I have reflected on “metta,” the practice of loving kindness towards all beings. I notice the gap that still exists in my practice between sending metta to those I love, or even feel neutral about, and those who have done me harm. Last month, when my car was stolen I was given ample opportunity to put metta into practice towards the car thieves. I managed pretty well the first day, but as the task list piled high with items like “call the insurance agent, the police, fill out the police report” (the list went on) my metta practice flew out the window. I was angry, and pissed off. “How inconsiderate,” I thought of the people stealing cars. “Do they KNOW how much trouble they are causing others?” I didn’t do so well after the list grew. The inquiry into how do I send metta to those who have done me or others harm, and to those who reject me is alive and thriving in me. Shortly after the car was returned, my husband and I went to Israel for a family wedding. Israel is one of the places on the planet that needs some metta sent its way so people can overcome their separation from each other born out of ideology and terror. The division between people based on religion is palpable. Religious and secular Jews don’t see eye to eye, and from an outsider perspective it seems that the strict orthodox Jews have created a whole sect of secular Jews who have rejected religion in its entirety. The layers within the Jews was complicated enough for me to grasp much less add in the complexity of other religions. What I noticed in conversation was how we all stereotype others: Palestinians, Christians, Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Americans, Israelis, placing people into small boxes that offer no breathing room. We all do it so we can get some kind of handle on the “them” we are dealing with. But when faced with someone different from ourselves, the metta practice asks us to stay open and kind towards the person in front of us whether they are a Jew, Muslim or Christian. I know I have not lived with the intensity of bombs exploding on buses in my city, nor have I felt persecuted as a person or part of a people’s history. What I do know is my own inner angst and pain that has moved through me in this lifetime. I have lived with grief since I was 6 when I lost my father to a heart attack, and since have lost various close friends. As with all pain, whether it is inflicted on us from another person, from a system or whether it is born from within, there is always the choice to close down or break open into another layer of ourselves. Can we begin by loving ourselves through the pain (metta practice guided towards oneself) and then send that metta to the perpetrator? The small handhold I have on sending metta towards someone who is harming or rejecting me is to send love to that person’s pain. I ask that they be healed of their suffering, and through their own healing they will no longer send harm to others. How does this apply in a practical world in which my car was stolen, and a member of my in-law’s family won’t speak to me because I’m not Jewish? It simply means sending love to those people and hope they find peace in their hearts. Peace with their own situation, peace by making other choices. It is a call to be bigger than I think I can be and to realize people make unfortunate choices out of fear and pain. So from that perspective I can find the place to send them some loving kindness. I marvel at the Dalai Lama and his immense capacity for loving the Chinese people given all the pain they have inflicted on the Tibetans. I notice in his letters to them he calls them brother and sister, remembering we are ALL one people with the same basic need for love in our lives. I hope and pray for more peace within each of our hearts, for healing within our families, within our communities, between countries and healing for the planet on which we live. Ask yourself, “How can I send more love out into the world? How can I be bigger than I think I can be today?” Peace Be with You! Shalom, Salam, Diane |
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