Two Simple Steps for Getting More Lovingkindness in Your Life

A life of lovingkindness in the face of every day’s events, good and bad, requires persistence and practice and a good deal of understanding. Here are two ways to begin setting the stage:

 

1. Commit at least one evening per month to watching a video about the life of a sage or saint. There are wonderful, deeply inspiring  movies or documentaries available on Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Father Bede Griffith, Mahatma Gandhi, Ananda Mayi Ma, Ramana Maharshi, Peace Pilgrim, “The Man Who Planted “Trees,” and many others whose lives took on the very essence of kindness and compassion.

            If you watch with family or friends, try to have sincere discussion afterward about how best to integrate the sage’s example into your own lives, however modestly. Acknowledge ways in which each of you tends to be kind and unkind. Resolve to make one change, no matter how small, or to perform one act of unreciprocated kindness, however modest, as a direct result of each video you watch.

 

2. Take the following vow each morning as part of your daily practice: I will refrain from blaming others for my negative states of mind. I will refrain from blaming circumstances for my negative states of mind.

            Our negative states of mind also tend to pass much more quickly when we are unable to pin them on others. We gain a finer understanding of the workings of human emotional states, which increases our empathy for others and spurs us on to greater lovingkindness. 

     -- Excerpts from It’s a Meaningful Life: It Just Takes Practice by Bo   Lozoff (New York: Viking Arkana, 2000)

Posted Juin 10th, 2010 by Oneness Blogger