This morning’s reding was about compassion for self and all sentient beings – another very lofty goal for a person who hasn’t yet mastered the instructions back on page one.
I read about how we must practice compassion for ourselves, for staying so long in delusion and false beliefs, creating suffering for ourselves and others, and then practice compassion for those still stuck in delusion and false beliefs, creating suffering for themselves and others. And then I set down the book and had one of the most scramble-headed, thinking-swamped meditations of all time, at least according to my mind.
I tried to think about compassion for self on breathing in, but thoughts invaded and I surrendered to them. I thought about compassion for others on breathing out, but then I thought of some specific people who I believe are caught in delusion and creating suffering for others, and off I went into thinking again. I was thinking so much I became tired. I tried to go back to counting breaths, but I lost track by 2 or 3 every time. I tried to measure how long my breaths were, but I kept wandering off. At one point I had a clear idea that perhaps I should try meditating before my first cup of coffee, rather than after, but then I just thought about coffee, and later, when I was drifting off to sleep a little, I thought it’s definitely better I have coffee before meditating.
Compassion for self. I decided to try that for the whole breath, for a few whole breaths, but I wandered off again. This is when I began to think that it was most scatterbrained meditation ever, and then I tried to remember the previous most scatterbrained meditation, and then I imagined a list of them, ranked by some kind of score, and then a thought came to me: No one else is keeping score.
Literally, not one other focal point of consciousness in the universe is tracking how “well” I am doing at this. It’s just me, sitting in my chair, thinking while trying not to think, breathing, trying to focus on that, and doing the best I can. And with that thought, I felt a little compassion creep in, like “It’s okay, you’re trying, you are in your chair doing your morning work, and no one else is keeping score, so you don’t have to. Just relax and breathe.”
I found that to be a helpful mantra this morning: No one else is keeping score. It is just me in my chair, doing the best I can, and it’s okay.
I tried to focus on that mantra and search within for the actual feeling of compassion, not the thought, and as I recall I didn’t really get there today. But it’s okay, because I tried, and while I would like to do “better,” that is a delusion and a false idea that creates suffering for myself, and therefore does not contribute to the cessation of sufferings for all other sentient beings. And that is the real North Star here, the ultimate reason I sit in my chair and do the best I can: to contribute to the cessation of suffering for all sentient beings. And while I am doing that, no one else is keeping score, so I don’t have to. I can just relax and breathe and let the compassion flow through me.
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