A Metaphor for Life
How should we think about life and the living of it? Here I offer a metaphor that may be useful for that purpose.
Imagine that in one hand you are holding onto Compassion. Take your time to examine it. Explore it carefully and passionately. Recognize that this hand holds the most important thing. Examine it until you see this. Now close your fist firmly around it and with the other, second, hand do what you must do to live.
As you carry on with living with all the things you do with your second hand, pause frequently to open your first hand and contemplate what you hold there. Renew your intimacy with the object that lies resting in your palm. Then carefully close your grasp around that precious thing before returning your attention to the activities of your second hand. No matter how busy you may become never loose your grasp on that Compassion in your first hand.
The Compassion you hold onto will guide the actions of your other hand. You will naturally act in ways that allow you to give enough attention to your grasp of Compassion that it will never be forgotten, never given a minor status, never dropped from inattention.
Frequently you will find that what has come to lie in your second hand may not be compatible with what is in your first hand. At such moments open both hands and look down at both closely. If you become convinced that the thing in your second hand is not compatible with what is in your first, drop the thing in your second hand. Get rid of it.
If you ever begin to wonder if the thing in your second hand is more important than the Compassion that lies in your first, it is not. Stop and look again until you see this. If you do not do this you will inevitably drop the Compassion in your first hand. This would leave your second hand unconstrained towards all kinds of destructive actions.
Of course, none of us has perfect concentration nor the perfect ability to forsee the outcome of all of our actions. We learn day by day new ways our actions have effects. So it is inevitable that we will all drop that Compassion from time to time.Just get down on your hands and knees and feel around in the dark, inch by inch, until you find it again. It never rolls far away. Pick it up again, dust it off, and put it back into your fist. Forget about the incident; it is past. Each day is a new opportunity to hold Compassion again.
Holding onto Compassion is the source of Right Action.
Go to addendum2:
Getting Compassion from a Stone
Michael Labhard
michaelL@towardsfreedom.com
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