local widlflowers, photo by MaryAs I mentioned in my last post, yesterday was a holy day, where thoughts and actions become more potent, like the way your voice is amplified when you speak through a cardboard tube, or multiple echoes reflect back again and again what you have said. For this reason, as a practitioner, one tries to be even more mindful during the day.
Well, being an ordinary mortal with a mind that can be a stew pot of emotions, I found myself reacting to circumstances yesterday that were not on the positive side of the scale. I became frustrated, compounded further by having a mental list of things (all "good") I wanted to accomplish on this special day.
In the midst of this, I was standing in my room, all churned up, when I glanced out the window. There, by the barn, was one of our visiting cows - a rich dark brown beauty with impressive horns - licking the face of her small calf, standing knee high at her side. Everything stopped as I watched them. It was a simple and touching scene, yet I intimately experienced her love for her child, and my inner whirlwind ceased instantly. I remembered the real purpose of a sacred day is to understand and contemplate the presence of loving kindness and compassion in our lives. Present in every moment.
In that potent way of synchronicity, I listened by phone this morning to Mugsang Rinpoche teach in Maryland. Rinpoche is a revered Teacher in our lineage, a heart son of our Throneholder, HH Penor Rinpoche. During his teaching, Rinpoche reminded us of the compassion that our parents, our mothers, have offered us from before our very birth, through the nurturing of our childhood - feeding us, clothing us, tending our wounds. Without that kindness and concern for us, we would not even be alive today.
In this hustle bustle world we sometimes forget that, forget the people who have provided us with support and guidance and love - those people who nourished us with the nectar of goodness from their own hearts, sometimes doing without so that we would benefit. Not that we probably didn't all experience anger, frustration, tension - especially with our mothers!! - but, at the core there was the gift of life, of potential, of doing the best for us, in the way that they could.
Yesterday, in one brief instant, the big brown ignorant cow showed me this; displayed for me a tenderness that is mine and yours, that was offered us by our parents. The tenderness of a good heart, of loving-kindness, of wanting to nurture and protect. I hope through my life to honour my parents and this gift, that it may become more than even they could ever have imagined. There is no way to repay others for what they have given us, except through the goodness of our own hearts and lives. May this be the gift we give each other, in every moment, every day.
Well, being an ordinary mortal with a mind that can be a stew pot of emotions, I found myself reacting to circumstances yesterday that were not on the positive side of the scale. I became frustrated, compounded further by having a mental list of things (all "good") I wanted to accomplish on this special day.
In the midst of this, I was standing in my room, all churned up, when I glanced out the window. There, by the barn, was one of our visiting cows - a rich dark brown beauty with impressive horns - licking the face of her small calf, standing knee high at her side. Everything stopped as I watched them. It was a simple and touching scene, yet I intimately experienced her love for her child, and my inner whirlwind ceased instantly. I remembered the real purpose of a sacred day is to understand and contemplate the presence of loving kindness and compassion in our lives. Present in every moment.
In that potent way of synchronicity, I listened by phone this morning to Mugsang Rinpoche teach in Maryland. Rinpoche is a revered Teacher in our lineage, a heart son of our Throneholder, HH Penor Rinpoche. During his teaching, Rinpoche reminded us of the compassion that our parents, our mothers, have offered us from before our very birth, through the nurturing of our childhood - feeding us, clothing us, tending our wounds. Without that kindness and concern for us, we would not even be alive today.
In this hustle bustle world we sometimes forget that, forget the people who have provided us with support and guidance and love - those people who nourished us with the nectar of goodness from their own hearts, sometimes doing without so that we would benefit. Not that we probably didn't all experience anger, frustration, tension - especially with our mothers!! - but, at the core there was the gift of life, of potential, of doing the best for us, in the way that they could.
Yesterday, in one brief instant, the big brown ignorant cow showed me this; displayed for me a tenderness that is mine and yours, that was offered us by our parents. The tenderness of a good heart, of loving-kindness, of wanting to nurture and protect. I hope through my life to honour my parents and this gift, that it may become more than even they could ever have imagined. There is no way to repay others for what they have given us, except through the goodness of our own hearts and lives. May this be the gift we give each other, in every moment, every day.
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