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Turning to the ever wise,
Pema Chodron this week.... from her book,
Comfortable with Uncertainty:
"You can cultivate the four limitless qualities of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity by learning to relax where you are. There's no problem with being where you are right now. Even if you feel loving-kindness and compassion for only one sentient being, that is a good place to start. Simply acknowledging, respecting,and appreciating warmth is a way to encourage its growth. We can be where we are and at the same time leave wide open the possibility of being able to expand far beyond where we are now in the course of our lifetime.
Expansion never happens through greediness or pushing or striving. It happens through some combination of learning to relax where you already are and, at the same time, keeping the possibility open that your capacity, my capacity, the capacity of all beings, is limitless. As we continue to relax where we are, our opening expands. This is the potential of a human being. This is the gift of a human birth. When we say, 'May I have happiness,' or 'May I be free of suffering,' or 'May any individual have happiness and be free of suffering,' we are saying that it is the potential of a human being to expand our capacity of opening and caring limitlessly. It starts out with feeling love or compassion for one being. It can expand to include more and more beings, until it reaches the full human capacity for connection with love and compassion, which is limitless, free-flowing warmth -- dynamic, alive, connected energy with no reference point. This is our human potential: to connect with the true state of affairs. It begins with being where we are."
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