So,
We'll start with a little bit of breathing meditation.
I'll lead that.
So,
Get yourself in your meditation posture.
Shoulders level,
Spine straight.
So wherever you are,
Whatever you're sitting on,
Find a way to be able to sit up straight so that your spine is stacked like a stack of coins,
One on top of the other.
The most important thing,
No matter what you're sitting on.
Shoulders level,
Lips closed,
But your teeth don't have to touch.
Eyes lowered.
Hands in your lap.
Left on the bottom,
Right on top,
Thumbs touching.
First be very aware of your body in this space.
Feel your feet on the floor,
Your rear on the cushion or on your chair.
Be aware of the movement of the air in your room.
As your body settles,
You'll very likely be more aware of the sounds around you.
Just allow those to pass through your hearing,
Through your being without grasping onto any one of them.
Just letting them pass through.
Eyes are lowered.
You can allow a little bit of light to come in,
Which will help keep you alert.
Bring your attention inside your own body and inside your own heart and connect with whatever brought you to this sharing the Dharma day today.
Whatever sense of refuge or hope or kindness,
Compassion,
Whatever brought you here,
Connect with that feeling.
Recognize that as an action of your own wise,
Kind heart.
And appreciate that about yourself.
The quality that aspires to know and grow the virtue inside yourself,
To share those good qualities with others.
A heart that genuinely wishes to be of benefit to sentient beings.
See if your imagination can expand to include all the beings that you are personally concerned about right now.
Friends,
Relatives,
People you know,
Groups of people that you feel an affinity for.
Try to imagine all the beings on this planet right now,
Humans,
Animals,
Beings we can't even see.
Everyone at the center of their heart having the capacity for goodness.
Capacity,
In fact,
To become fully awakened.
And so as much as possible,
Let's set a motivation that our time together today will contribute to the peace of every single being.
Think of the few specific ones to really ground it.
And to think that our practice contributes to our own peace as well.
With that motivation,
Take your attention to your breathing.
Either placing your mind at the belly where the breath is coming in and out,
You can feel the belly rising and falling.
Or at the nostrils and upper lip where you can feel the air moving.
Pick one of those spots and let the attention rest there.
Not tight,
Not too loose.
Making your mind aware of that particular spot,
Holding that attention.
And whenever the mind wanders,
We just bring it back.
Do that together for a couple of minutes.
Okay.
.
.
So we'll take the next few minutes to examine the kindness around us that we have received.
I think it was Thubtenjatpa that says that it's so ubiquitous.
Kindness is so much a part of our life that we don't even see it.
And yet opening our eyes or our hearts to see it both brightens our mind,
Gladdens us when times are tough,
Helps us cultivate genuine love,
And is a really important quality to cultivate along the path.
So we'll start with a group that's easy.
Take a moment to reflect on the kindness we received from our friends and have since we were small children.
So don't think about it in a way that,
You know,
Makes you kind of cling and long for them in this moment.
It's really,
This is more an analysis,
An assessment,
A survey.
How we have been helped by our friends,
Helped us in doing tasks or in providing encouragement.
So let your mind explore the kindness you received from friends now and throughout your life.
And as you do that,
Let your gratitude arise.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Very likely we're seeing right away that acts of human kindness are definitely a part of our experience.
So move our attention to another group,
Parents and relatives.
For some of us,
This one's a little bit harder to see.
And for some,
It's actually really hard to see.
Mother,
Father,
Brothers,
Sisters,
Grandparents,
Uncles,
Aunts,
Think of all these relatives.
And we go back to the very beginning of our life when we were completely helpless,
Literally born without a stitch of clothing,
Not a dime in our pocket,
Nothing to eat.
We couldn't do anything.
And yet some way,
Mostly it was relatives that managed to care for us,
Keep us alive,
Teach us to speak,
Help us walk,
Get us dressed so we learned to go to school.
And for some in many ways throughout our lives,
Our relatives somehow have helped us make a way in the world.
We accepted this complete stranger at our birth and helped us along.
So think about that for a minute.
And again,
Don't get too.
.
.
Don't let attachment arise,
But simply see it as kindness,
Kindness we have received.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
It's quite natural actually to move your attention then to our teachers.
Sometimes our relatives have been our teachers,
In fact,
In many ways.
We've had other teachers in our lives,
Both formal and informal.
However you make a living in the world right now is dependent on what you've learned from teachers.
From preschool to professional development recently,
Think of the innumerable teachers that we've had in our lives and how they've helped us.
Again,
Let your gratitude arise.
Okay.
And we can expand our thinking on teachers to think about the help we've received from strangers,
Which is a list that you can meditate on for hours,
But even just think about the institutions in which you learned.
Who founded those institutions?
Who administered them?
How did those classrooms come to be?
Who wrote those books?
Who managed the library?
Who ran the school bookstores?
Living beings that we will never know who they were.
And yet we benefited so much just from how they supported our learning.
We can see these as acts of kindness too,
Not because they intended to help us necessarily,
But because their work,
Their effort helped us so much.
And we can have gratitude for that as well.
Even just reflecting on this for a few moments,
We can see that without the effort of so many living beings that make society run,
We would not survive.
And there's another group.
We can think about the benefit we receive from the people we don't get along with,
Even from the people who have harmed us.
This may take a stretch,
And we come to it when we're ready,
But it's useful to think about what have I learned?
How have I grown?
How have the people who challenged me,
How have they shaped the person I am today?
In what ways has my adaptation,
My resilience grown in response even to harm?
And I begin to reframe some of this in a way that we can appreciate the kindness.
So,
This has been a brief survey of a very beautiful meditation that we can explore in infinitely,
I think.
We've received incalculable benefit of the service of others,
Help from others throughout our lifetime.
Care and kindness,
Love have come to us,
And we can be really grateful.
And with gratitude comes a really natural wish to repay the kindness of others.
So make that determination,
The determination to cultivate the mind that sees the kindness around us.
Gratitude arises,
Love arises,
And a wish to repay that kindness naturally follows.
Thank you.
