When I read the practice, I thought this is crazy because I don't need anymore pain and suffering in my life. I have enough of my own. Feeling calm and relaxed, I began to visualize the suffering of a friend or love one with every breath in and the thoughts of that pain turned to something deeper causing me to want to help in some way or another. The more I breathed in and out I could feel the pain and suffering slowly slip away as I breathed out. I wasn't sure if this was because I was thinking that with every breath out I was offering some type of emotional support that caused their pain to ease or what? I just know I could visualize the pain slowly going away and I could imagine the smiles on their faces and the warmth in their hearts.
I found this to be a great workout for mental fitness because it makes you think of ways to use loving-kindness. This exercise proves if you can show compassion for others, you can ease your mind and find inner peace with yourself. I have seen firsthand what happens when I open my heart and show loving-kindness to others, it makes me happy to know that if only for a moment I was able to bring happiness to someone else in the form of a smile, gesture or emotional support. After listening to this exercise, I feel at ease and more focused, I think I really like feeling this way. It's much better than starting off my day feeling grumpy. I'm really looking forward to doing more of these types of practices; I think I'm beginning to like this feeling of relaxation.
Hey Miles
ReplyDeleteI had to check in on who I think the only other male in our class. I appreciate your thought process and I agree that we must love ourselves in order to provide love in an authentic representation; but that does not excuse me from practicing principles that allied with the cause if intent is pure. I think that the idea of assuming the magnitude of one’s suffering is a metaphorical way of aligning one’s self with an attitude that impels good vibrations, karmic influence, or general selflessness. It may be one of evolutionary baby steps to becoming an empath or altruist. Empathy is capable of division to address emotional and cognitive states: emotional empathy is driven to respond with appropriate emotion to another’s mental state based on emotional contagion. Cognitive Empathy is driven to identify another’s mental state. Anyway I come back to the adage “pain shared ids pain lessened” maybe this allows us to connect with another on one of those subtle levels. As you share in the third paragraph; AWESOME!
Peace
Vinnie
I had to stop in and see what the guys thought. My husband seems to be in the same mind set as you. He liked the exercise however was not a fan of bringing in suffering that amazed me because he is a firm believer in service to many leads to greatness. Have your feeling changed on this? I asked him earlier and he still feels the same.
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