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Authors: Joan Gattuso
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precious as one’s own. The Buddhists teach of learning to cherish others, a beautiful teaching. To learn to cherish others takes practice, constant practice. Here is an exercise to help you develop the capacity to cherish others:
Cherishing Others
Before arising, as you do your mental and spiritual preparation for the day, say to yourself something like this: “I know life is going to give me opportunities today to practice cherishing another. Let me be attentive enough to see the opportunity and to do something sensitive.” The “something” may be to send a silent blessing or to give an extra-generous tip to a harried server. You could also attempt to kindly engage in a conversation with someone who is obviously having a troublesome day.
An effective way we can always cherish others is to have kindly thoughts about them, dropping any judgment or criticism, always giving them the benefit of the doubt. You do not need to search far and wide for individuals to cherish. Each day your living of life will put a few in your path.
In the recent past my husband and I were at a very tense baseball game. It would be a stretch to say that I’m a great fan, but a few times a year on a pleasant night a baseball game can be fun. This particular night we had fantastic seats, and the home team was shining. I had purchased a diet drink that came in an oversized cup. Each time I took a drink I placed the cup in the holder attached to the seat in front of me. I was focused on the game when the woman sitting to my left giggled and pointed at my cup. The man in the seat in front had stretched out his arm and allowed his hand and fingers to dangle over the side right into my cup!
The woman and I laughed. And I wondered, What do I do? Obviously no more of that soft drink would be consumed. A vendor came down the aisle yelling, “Cold beer, who wants a cold drink?” I thought, I do. For a moment I considered tapping that fan on the arm and asking him to buy me a replacement since four of his fingers were still in my cup. But I didn’t do that, and I didn’t say anything, knowing that whatever I said would be embarrassing to the man.
The purpose of life is to practice being a conscious individual, not causing another to suffer in any way. Telling that man his fingers were in my cup could have caused him a moment of suffering. So I didn’t do it. And on that warm, autumn night, life gave me an opportunity to cherish a Cleveland Indians fan.
Our actions are the outer manifestation of the inner workings of our views, thoughts and speech. Right Action is conscious action. It is being so awake that we cease reacting to life and its challenges, and instead we are certain that our responses are conscious.
Do not waste your time in futile occupations.
—SOGYAL RINPOCHE
RIGHT LIVELIHOOD
EACH ONE OF THE POINTS on the Eight-fold Path is extremely important and is vital in interacting with the others. That being said, Right Livelihood is crucial. It is how most of us spend our waking hours. We all must find a way to earn our living to support our families and ourselves that is conscious. And it must be in alignment with these ideals. Our careers need to express loving kindness, integrity, service, compassion, generosity, equanimity, passion and joy.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, veterans of a District of Columbia software company, created Google while they were idealistic Stanford University graduate students. The company still lists under “10 things Google has found to be true” that “you can make money without doing evil.”
Right Livelihood is truly knowing you can earn a living and be prosperous without being a crook!
As a metaphysical minister for nearly thirty years, I surely know how deeply people want to be prosperous, to always have enough. We need enough money so that we can meet our needs and enough money to generously give and share. We need enough money so that money is not the focus of our lives. As Stuart
Cherishing Others
Before arising, as you do your mental and spiritual preparation for the day, say to yourself something like this: “I know life is going to give me opportunities today to practice cherishing another. Let me be attentive enough to see the opportunity and to do something sensitive.” The “something” may be to send a silent blessing or to give an extra-generous tip to a harried server. You could also attempt to kindly engage in a conversation with someone who is obviously having a troublesome day.
An effective way we can always cherish others is to have kindly thoughts about them, dropping any judgment or criticism, always giving them the benefit of the doubt. You do not need to search far and wide for individuals to cherish. Each day your living of life will put a few in your path.
In the recent past my husband and I were at a very tense baseball game. It would be a stretch to say that I’m a great fan, but a few times a year on a pleasant night a baseball game can be fun. This particular night we had fantastic seats, and the home team was shining. I had purchased a diet drink that came in an oversized cup. Each time I took a drink I placed the cup in the holder attached to the seat in front of me. I was focused on the game when the woman sitting to my left giggled and pointed at my cup. The man in the seat in front had stretched out his arm and allowed his hand and fingers to dangle over the side right into my cup!
The woman and I laughed. And I wondered, What do I do? Obviously no more of that soft drink would be consumed. A vendor came down the aisle yelling, “Cold beer, who wants a cold drink?” I thought, I do. For a moment I considered tapping that fan on the arm and asking him to buy me a replacement since four of his fingers were still in my cup. But I didn’t do that, and I didn’t say anything, knowing that whatever I said would be embarrassing to the man.
The purpose of life is to practice being a conscious individual, not causing another to suffer in any way. Telling that man his fingers were in my cup could have caused him a moment of suffering. So I didn’t do it. And on that warm, autumn night, life gave me an opportunity to cherish a Cleveland Indians fan.
Our actions are the outer manifestation of the inner workings of our views, thoughts and speech. Right Action is conscious action. It is being so awake that we cease reacting to life and its challenges, and instead we are certain that our responses are conscious.
Do not waste your time in futile occupations.
—SOGYAL RINPOCHE
RIGHT LIVELIHOOD
EACH ONE OF THE POINTS on the Eight-fold Path is extremely important and is vital in interacting with the others. That being said, Right Livelihood is crucial. It is how most of us spend our waking hours. We all must find a way to earn our living to support our families and ourselves that is conscious. And it must be in alignment with these ideals. Our careers need to express loving kindness, integrity, service, compassion, generosity, equanimity, passion and joy.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page, veterans of a District of Columbia software company, created Google while they were idealistic Stanford University graduate students. The company still lists under “10 things Google has found to be true” that “you can make money without doing evil.”
Right Livelihood is truly knowing you can earn a living and be prosperous without being a crook!
As a metaphysical minister for nearly thirty years, I surely know how deeply people want to be prosperous, to always have enough. We need enough money so that we can meet our needs and enough money to generously give and share. We need enough money so that money is not the focus of our lives. As Stuart
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