How can we be kind to each other, to other creatures, and to the world?
A Loving Kindness Meditation
Here is a meditation we use every night when putting our son to bed. I cobbled it together using Rev. Kusala's loving kindness meditation from the Urban Dharma Podcast):
May our family, our friends, our teachers, classmates and coworkers, all the people we don't know, and all the people we don't like, be happy, peaceful, and free from suffering.
May no harm come to us. May no difficulties come to us. May no problems come to us. May we always find fulfillment.
May we also have patience, courage, understanding, and determination,
to meet and overcome the inevitable difficulties, problems, and failures in life.
May the suffering ones be suffering free, May the fear struck - fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, And the sick find health relief.




I like that you include all the people you don't know AND all the people you don't like.
There are people you don't like?
Well, for instance, Hitler ranks up there pretty high on the "I don't like this person" scale. But everyone deserves to be happy, peaceful, and free from suffering.
I like the way you think. That's not how I see the world (at least at the moment) but there are quite of few people that actually see compassion in everybody. I believe Ghandi once said that he got beaten up by the police force once and said something along the lines of not being wasn't upset about it because from the other person's perspective they felt they were doing the right thing.
It's definitely something I struggle with. I do feel that I need to have compassion for everyone, because everyone is just a product of their environment, and if that environment hasn't been ideal, obviously they're going to develop incorrect behaviors and ideas about the world.
And if I don't want to suffer from frustration, I need to understand that and have compassion for them. And if I don't want to cause anyone else to suffer, I need to understand that and have compassion for them. It's all about the intention to end suffering.
perhaps if they were free from suffering some people would cause less suffering in others
That too. A lot of people lead themselves astray because they're trying to find an end their own suffering, but because of their environment teaching them the wrong things, they don't realize that they're causing their own suffering by lashing out.
If only there could be a zap of electricity that accompanies that feedback loop, people would learn to stop.
Maybe. But I think the reality is that they learn to love the zap. You will find a lot of people actually enjoy the conflicts that they cause. It gives their lives meaning, to them.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Indeed.
It's also why Jesus said to "Turn the other cheek" - A lot of people interpret this merely as "don't retaliate" but in fact, it's much more clever than that:
Wow!
@beemo does this have any place in your screenplay?
There's a screenplay?
Stage play
It's an ongoing conversation between @beemo and the world.
I... don't understand, but I'm willing to accept that.
The world wants @beemo to write a screenplay but it also gives him many ways to procrastinate from doing so.
Ahhh, I see.
Yeah, I did not do a good job of explaining that.
I forgive you.
Much appreciated, Guy!
The hyperlink didn't work for me so I just copied the link address and pasted this
http://www.urbandharma.org/kusala/revkus/morning.html
Fixed! (Had an extra paren in there accidentally)