In my years of study and practice and teaching, I've been learning both the power of breath and listening and imagery and the importance of basic, ongoing physical and vocal training. And in embracing this in-out/ out-in balance, I begin to experience the unity of ends and means.
The experience and practice of lovingkindness as a baseline approach to living really isn't some mystical ability only granted to the most pious people. Lovingkindness is, I say, our most basic human condition. When an adult gives herself over to play with a toddler, when a teenager falls head over heels in love, and when a family gathers around a beloved deathbed and sings --- are these not spontaneous and utterly natural moments of lovingkindness.
So if this is our native state, why do we so often feel caught up in contraction, in conflict, in isolation? Could it be that when we experience the ebb and flow of the ocean of life we sometimes feel ourselves to be driftwood bobbing up and down, while other times we are the water and the shore and the moon and all the creatures, moving in harmony, existing as unity?
On this lovely, sunny Saturday here on the San Francisco Peninsula, let me give you a gentle nudge. Wherever you are right now, look up. Soften your gaze. Slow and deepen your breath. Allow the sensation of your gently beating heart to rise up and bring an inner smile to your face. See the colors. Feel the air. Smell and touch with tenderness and curiosity. Allow the scene around you to hold you in its embrace. Breathe out loving and kindness to every image that your imagination provides. This is a practice one can take along wherever you go. And the more space you create for this practice in your day-to-day life, the more you will be met with lovingkindness everywhere you may go.
I wish you, dear reader, truth and peace and joy.