Bodhichitta
The tenderness for life, bodhichitta, awakens when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence. It awakens through kinship with the suffering of others. We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we can take the pain of the world in, let it touch our hearts, and turn it into compassion. Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty Grief is experienced and expressed in the most intimate of ways. For a year after my father died, I spent afternoons at a cafe fragrant with yeast and coffee and buzzing with chatter and music. It held me in just the right way for my heart to turn over and into itself in the sweet and sorrowful dance of mourning and loss. My daughter after a long illness had to go through surgery. I took my grief for her suffering to the lake where the evening waters like a soothing Madonna drew ...