Loving Kindness

Wednesday morning in the Chan Hall. Half way through the Shining Silence retreat. Jake had just spoken, among other things, about how we could exhaust ourselves if we tried to extinguish, repress, every thought, and that we should be willing to allow some thoughts into our mindful space. This, he pointed out, was different from in the early stages of the retreat, when calming the mind is paramount.

I sat on my stool, facing the wall. I had taken to calming my mind with two or three counts of breath to ten, then doing the whole body exercise and bringing my breath attention to the hara. I found that the more physical, almost tangible, I could make each breath-in-body, the more empty my mind could become

Suddenly, as if from nowhere but also very tangibly from right here the words came to me, "Don't obstruct the loving kindness". A command, an instruction, like a prophet in the Old Testament (and curiously phrases from the Book of Common Prayer, especially the General thanksgiving, had been running through my head from time to time).

I think I had been aware of my grandchildren, two year old Otto and new-born Liberty, the image of the brother and sister, the potency of their young beings had already moved me to tears of gratitude.

"Don't obstruct the loving kindness." I sat turning these words over in my mind as a mantra or koan. No obstruction is something Buddhists pray for; Loving-kindness is incarnated in the Dalai Lama.

I went into the yard for the walk period. And again, "Don't obstruct the loving kindness." came to me. I began to think and make connections intellectually: if we were to be living in a community of subjects on the planet, as Thomas Berry would have us, rather than as a collection of separate objects, then loving kindness is the appropriate attitude to learn. We treat another as subject through loving-kindness. It is more than an expression of responsibility or stewardship, those words are important but too instrumental. We treat the world; we approach our world, with loving-kindness. And if we want others to do the same, we can only treat them with loving-kindness.

I returned to my seat. The timekeeper fumbled the bell slightly, and I caught my critical side stirring. Silly man, why can' t he do it properly? And I caught myself in the act of being critical and giggled as I settled into my posture. How silly can one be? I allowed the giggles to deepen into laughter. And they turned into tears.