Sisters on the road to Lower Hamlet, Plum Village 2018

Thank you for a new OG self-help book with fun quotes like this: “A society composed of men and women who do not bow too much to the conventions is a far more interesting society than one in which all behave alike” (Bertrand Russel).

Thank you for open spaces.

Thank you for freebies declined.

Thank you for pickled radishes dyed with beets.

Thank you for spices.

Thank you for healthcare.

Thank you for rhythms in songs.

Thank you for rhythms in life.

Thank you for fragrant trees.

Thank you for lasting awareness with determination to remain clear of DM3. Doing so supports healing. 

Thank you for the perspective distance brings.

Thank you for hope and faith in love and humanity.

Thank you for the beauty of the unknown. 

Thank you for all of us enduring hardships, if only because we have solidarity in our suffering and efforts to make it through.

Thank you for questions, even (maybe especially) ones without clear answers.

Thank you for openness to ambiguity when loose ends don’t tie up. We can craft stories to give certainty. And it’s easy to take those stories for truth. The best in me would rather not pretend less complicated narratives are real, though. The best in me embraces the mess. 

Thank you for guidance from Thich Nhat Hanh’s talks. Thank you for his humility and imperfect English. Thank you for his soft “milkshake” voice. Thank you for the grainy videos that preserve his gems. Thank you for the simple profundity of his lessons. Several helped me this week. 

Thank you for wisdom with love (like his), that pulls me through default states of darkness and anger almost like it’s lifting me against gravity. (I guess that default mode is why they call those states “negative habit patterns.”)

Thank you for practices to make a habit of walking the less habitual path, through suffering into wellness. Efforts to diminish unhealthy habit patterns while growing healthy ones must persist. It won’t stick to hear an inspirational talk once in a while or visit a retreat center for vacation or read a text start to finish. Active study is necessary. It has to be ongoing, even repetitive. The principles engrained and practiced will have an impact. 

Some efforts to make this stuff stick are writing little notes (like these) and sharing them.

Thank you for snippets from the talk, “A simple way to heal yourself”: 

• Compassion is born from understanding of suffering.

• The energy that can help you look at suffering, listen to suffering, and embrace suffering is called mindfulness.

• If you know how to suffer, you suffer much less.

• Compassion should be directed to yourself first. If you don’t know how to be compassionate to yourself, it’s very difficult to be compassionate to another person.

Thank you for snippets from talk, “taking care of anger”:

• “It is insight that transforms our affllictions.” 

• Steps in transforming our anger through mindfulness:

  • Recognizing our anger

  • Embracing our anger

  • Looking deeply (into our anger, ourselves, our situation…) 

  • Getting insight

  • Getting transformation, healing, and freedom

Thank you for snippets from talk, “loving speech and deep listening,” and the determination to practice deep listening in future conversations.

• How to listen with mindfulness of compassion: 

  • “I am listening to him with only one purpose: to help him to suffer less. Therefore, even if he says wrong things, if he is bitter, if he blames, I still continue to listen.”

  • “Breathe in and out mindfully during the whole session of listening, and remember just one thing. Listening to that person, I only have one purpose: Give him a chance to suffer less. Just remember one thing throughout the session. And you can tell yourself that his misunderstanding, his judgement based on prejudices and misunderstanding, in a few days I will have a chance to give him, to offer him some informations so that he can correct his perception. But not now. Now is only to listen.” 

• Your energy of compassion will keep you safe. “If compassion is there, what the other person is saying, even with a lot of wrong perception, even with bitterness, anger, blames, accusations, you are safe. Because you are protected by compassion. The best protection is the protection with compassion.”

Thank you for holiday sharing. Wishing you warmth, wellness, and peace this season! May your life and love thrive in 2023.