Three Truths and One Wish

On Tuesdays, I usually write a Three Truths and One Wish post. I don’t plan or draft these posts ahead of time. Their particular magic seems to be that I show up without an agenda, open up a new post and start writing, beginning with the three things that are true for me right at that moment. Based on those three truths, I end with some sort of wish. This Tuesday, I’m taking part in the Your Turn Challenge, and the day two prompt is, “Tell us about something that’s important to you.” So, I’m going to give you three truths that are important to me.

1. Truth: Cultivating compassion is the most important thing. That includes self-compassion. Compassion is the antidote to all the crud, the muck, the mess, the yuck, the ways that we generate suffering — judgement, criticism, discomfort, irritation, impatience, speed, busyness, dullness, laziness, distraction, anxiety, worry, disorder, neurosis, addiction, anger, hatred, aggression, all of it. And when I say compassion, I’m not talking about “being nice.” I’m not referring to idiot compassion. I don’t mean something that is weak or passive. Compassion, paired with its twin wisdom, is the most powerful force there is. It’s part of the reason we are so afraid of it.

2. Truth: The way to cultivate compassion is through practice. For me, practice is writing, yoga, meditation, and dog. I show up without agenda, connect with my innate wisdom and compassion, and keep my heart open no matter what might arise. I watch how I react, the ways that my mind wanders off or creates a story about what is happening. I notice the ways I generate suffering. I contemplate reality, attempting to know what is true underneath all my bullshit. Even though I have specific, regular and ongoing practices where I can do this directly, what I’ve realized is that everything can be practice, your whole entire life, every moment, every breath is the opportunity to practice.

3. Truth: The goal of practice is to embody compassion. To become a physical manifestation of wisdom and love, to become a being that acts always from that truth. Showing up in the world with an open heart. Letting what is touch you. Not resisting, rejecting, hiding, numbing or freaking out and running away. Doing our best to ease suffering, in ourselves and the world. Connected to our innate wisdom and compassion, we know just what to do, and we can keep our heart open to the contradiction that life is both tender and terrible, beautiful and brutal.

One wish: May we continue to cultivate and embody compassion, and through the merit of our practice may suffering be eased.

1. Truth: I am trying really hard to not feel overwhelmed. I came back to my CSU work yesterday after a long few weeks of vacation. Part of getting myself organized, ready for the start of the semester, was putting all the things I’ve scheduled for the next sixteen weeks on my Google calender. When I saw it in “black and white” like that, I was surprised by how much I had committed to: teaching yoga, a training class with Ringo, Feast with Rachel Cole, various Open Heart project opportunities, a ZenPen ecourse, weekly meetings with interns, yoga classes, blog posts, working on a book, etc. At that moment, I had a choice: freak out or accept it. For now, I’m accepting it, trying not to freak out.

2. Truth: It isn’t helping that I haven’t seen the sun for two days straight. Today isn’t looking good either, gray and cold. It’s hard to imagine how I didn’t completely lose my mind growing up in the Pacific Northwest, were we’d go for weeks or even months with no blue sky, where it felt like for nine months out of every year, the sky had a ceiling and it was resting right on the top of my head, a weight that felt like it would crush me.

This morning’s couching, image by Eric

3. Truth: I’m better than I was, but my dogs still trigger such anxiety, panic in me. Sam’s mouth is itchy again, and even though we know how to help him now, to see his back leg scratch at the air and his head shake pulls me right back to the time when we didn’t know, when we thought we might lose him — my body remembers. And then Ringo snorted something irritating up his nose, was gagging and rubbing his face in the snow, and even though it only lasted for maybe five minutes, I was right back in those moments with Dexter, when sneezing and such was a sign of something that was killing him. For a long time, I lived in that panic almost every waking moment, whereas now it’s an echo in my body, a memory embodied. It comes in waves and surges, but eventually dissolves, and that’s at least better.

One wish: That even if the sun doesn’t come out, and even if we have a lot to do and things arise that trigger us, we can remember that underneath it all is a calm, an ease, a wisdom that is available to us at any time, all the time. May we easily find that space, that ease, that calm.