I finally got round to listening and watching Joan Halifax’s TED talk on Youtube. She is a rousing and spine-tingling speaker. Every so often she stops talking, places her hands in a position of prayer and raises them to her mouth. No doubt gathering her thoughts and perhaps praying for guidance. She talks about compassion as an active feeling, as an emotion that is not about pity or moral outrage but one that moves within us so as to heal. She quoted the Buddhist notion of a hard back and a soft front, of keeping your heart open to life, to others but remaining grounded, centred in oneself. I need to learn this. The suffering of others touches me deeply but I am of no use if I am weighed down or hobbled by their pain. I want to actively sit with it, witness it but still be able to be strong and vital so that I can offer clean, pure light-filled healing. She put it all so eloquently. I cannot. Help me to do some good, in whatever small way I can. Not as a stroke to my ego, but a genuine detached, non-self goodness.
