Mingyur Rinpoche write of three stages of meditatve experience: the waterfall, the river and the lake. I'm starting to understand the river.
This is a stage where thoughts don't get stuck. My sense of self is not entirely determined by the rush of memories and painful images and feelings. Because I can watch them slowly move through my nervous system, a natural gentleness and tenderness begins to emerge. Lovinkindness, not as an exercise or a concept but as a natural quailty of mind; the first of what in Buddhism is called The Four Immeasurable Qualities.
The challenge this week is to develop the skill of resting in this state of being without becoming over attached to it. I don't want to turn lovingkindness back into a concept.
I would love to turn this gentleness into a habit. A habit that steps in when the other habits I'm trying to let go of--anger, envy, fear, pride--begin to overwhelm me.
The trick I discovered last week is to locate that part of me that still wants to be overwhelmed, that part of me that doesn't want to see what life could be, or could have been like if I'd lived with more gentleness. But if I can feel and live the gentleness, then I'm more likely to remember the gentleness of people who were more often than not harsh with me. I can see how their harshness came out of fear, and misery and had very little to do with me. I can forgive fully, not for them, but for myself. And maybe in doing so I can help them find the gentleness in their own hearts.
