I've had several conversations today about loving kindness and the need for compassion in our world (for some reason the holiday season seems to bring out the worst parts of the human psyche, don't you think??) I wanted to share something with you, in hopes that my own experience yesterday may help you to meditate more deeply today on loving kindness.
I was in the grocery store yesterday, 9 months pregnant and with a full cart. I was waiting to maneuver my heavy cart into a check out lane, clearly in line but waiting for an elderly person in a walker to shuffle out of the way so as not to upend them. As I patiently waited, another elderly woman squeezed her cart between the person in the walker and the checkout lane so as to get in front of me and started unloading her 3 or 4 items.
My immediate reaction was one of irritation...clearly I had been waiting for that lane and this lady just pushed her way past without concern for me or the person in the walker. What's more, I would have offered to let her go ahead of me, seeing as she was herself an older person and didn't have very many items at all (compared to my full cart). Instead, she ASSUMED I'd be inconsiderate of her needs and so thought she'd outdo me, and be inconsiderate FIRST.
I was really upset by this, until I realized - what difference does it make? I would have let her go ahead of me anyway, the outcome is the same. It was my own ego and sense of entitlement making me feel this way. That somehow *I* deserved to be first, on principle. And suddenly I felt sad that she felt the need to cut me off because she ASSUMED that no one else in the world would look out for her - that she needed to 'look out for number one' - which is the same need I had that made ME feel indignant.
Until we all learn to be compassionate and put the collective good ahead of our individual needs, we'll all just be in the same place as me and that lady in the grocery - competing for who's 'individuality' should be the most important. And until we can recognize the need for compassion and loving kindness for ALL people, even those who upset us or anger us (both myself and grocery store lady should have reflected on this), we'll never be happy. When anger controls us, we never move forward. Hate breeds hate. Imagine if we all could assume that everyone we met would be kind to us... imagine that world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I think that is one of the greatest learning lessons of life. Realizing that we CHOOSE to be offended. Whether or no offense was intended, we chose how we react. When we realize that- and allow ourselves to choose not to be offended, we can truly grow. Its a very humbling idea. To understand our weakness, and others weakness and accept it instead of shunning it and allowing it(them) to rule us.
Post a Comment