Daily Archive

I began the meditation with a review of the facts about all living beings – that they are all my mothers, that they have all been so kind to me in the past, and that now they are tormented by sufferings because of their contaminated rebirth in samsara.

I began considering how I felt about my son when he had an ear infection one night. I was downstairs with him in the middle of the night. We had given him all the pain killers allowed and he was still in agony. He was crying and holding onto me tight, as if I was his refuge, the only place he could turn. But I could not do anything more than hold him and tell him it would be ok. I wished I could take his pain away. I wished with all my heart that his pain would come to me. I think all parents have felt this.

I imagined this in the context of all living beings. I wished that I could get between them and their pain. I imagined their sufferings rising from them like black smoke, and them becoming free of their suffering. I focused on that and repeated to myself – how wonderful it would be for them to be free from their suffering.

I began to feel a very expansive clear feeling – it had a force and an urgency to it, and a massiveness to it. It was my wish for them to all be free. I stayed with this feeling for the rest of the meditation.