The Bridle

Meditations:

Compassion

• “One of my teachers tells a story about the time

when, as a young seeker in Nepal, he started having

intensely blissful meditative experiences and thought

they must indicate some kind of momentous spiritual

progress. He sat down with his teacher, a seasoned

old Tibetan lama, and began to describe the

experiences. The lama cut him off with a single

question: ‘Have they increased your compassion for

all beings?’ Well, no, they hadn't. ‘Then they don't

mean a thing.’ (p. 30-31)

• Kindness, it turns out, is the way to liberate not only

others but ourselves. (p. 34)

• And still, sometimes the road rage wins. The truth is,

it's a long-term project: over and over again, we just have to

keep choosing kindness. There's always a range of

actions of which we're capable. Above a certain

threshold we can't be that saintly (yet), and below

another threshold we can't be that vicious (anymore).

The trick is to keep leaning, gently but steadily, toward the

uppermost level of your range. That way you're always doing

the best that can be done by the person you are today and

pushing your upper threshold a little higher for tomorrow.”

(The Zen Commandments, Dean Sluyter, pp. 38-39)

• “With this experience (living meditatively), we can

cultivate our garden. The flowers of love,

compassion, and wisdom gradually take over, and the

weeds of anger, jealousy, and self-involvement have

less and less room to grow. In peaceful abiding we

become familiar with the ground of basic goodness.

This is how we turn the mind into an ally.”

(Turning the Mind into an Ally, Sakyong Mipham, p. 34)

• Beloved, Neutral, Angsters!

• Meditative Good Will, Letting Go