This morning readings:
The Sufi Master Pir Vilayat Khan teaches us:
~Overcome any bitterness that may have come because you were not up to the magnitude of the pain entrusted to you.
Jack Kornfield follows with:
Like the mother of the world who carries the pain of the world in her heart, you are sharing in a certain measure of that cosmic pain, and are called upon to meet it in joy instead of self-pity
When I first heard “the pain entrusted to you” I felt anger and, under that, fear, and then I noticed unacknowledged grief that had under laid a large portion of my life. I have long had a devotional practice around Avaloketesvara, the Buddhist icon of the Embodiment of Compassion. Often portrayed as having a thousand hands with an eye in each hand, representing that she perceives the pain of every being, Avaloketesvara carries all the tools that might help: lassos, mystic jewels, hatchets. When I first meet my Zen teacher Issan Dorsey, I asked him “How do we help out Avaloketesvara?” His response, “By knowing our own suffering.” profoundly rocked me. I had to look at my own response to difficulties in this life. The only remedy I have since found is to build a larger picture of the world, one that includes my loss as part of everyone else’ pain as well. The picture of Avaloketesvara includes the whole world, from the ocean at the bottom through the land of trees and mountains, to the heavens above.
Mushim Patricia Ikeda’s response to the coronavirus isolation was to post on Facebook Kisa Gotami as”My Buddhist Word of the Day.” This is the classic Buddhist tale of a grieving mother holding her only child who has died. The Buddha sends her to find “a cup of mustard seed from a family in which no one has died.” Her sorrow is our sorrow, all of our sorrow.
Here is a contemporary story of loss:
Ghosteen by Nick Cave and the Bad Boys
Kornfield, Jack. (2002). The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace.
https://www.facebook.com/mushim.ikeda. (19:May:20)
Nick Cave and the Bad Boys. Ghosteen
