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Compassionate Toward Yourself
Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.
I notice that I fed myself this morning in the kindest way. The food was wholesome and simple, and if I hadn’t had china and elegant flatware and chairs and table and candle, I would have found a place in the sun and sat and eaten breakfast with my hands. I wouldn’t give myself less than the best of what is available at any moment. I love that I am my keeper, and I love what keeps the keeper: everything.
Making breakfast for Stephen and myself is about watching kindness in action. I watch it move to the refrigerator, a hand opens the door, and I call it mine. I can never believe that, and the mind song is the background music that I love. What will the hand reach for? It pulls out an egg carton and a loaf of bread, and I notice the light reflected off the white surfaces in the kitchen. The hand takes four eggs, the body moves to the counter, the hand puts two slices of bread in the toaster, takes out a fork, a bowl, cracks the eggs, scrambles them, adds salt and pepper, moves to the stove, puts a pat of butter on the skillet, watches it melt, pours in the eggs. And as they are cooking, I see mental pictures of chickens in the fresh air and sunlight (the eggs are free-range), and also pictures of chickens in cages on top of each other, being force-fed, and I ask myself where am I in a cage, and I wait in the silence. I see the long-ago times when I was in a cage, and what an endless, dark period that seemed to be, when I believed that my pain was unbearable even as I bore it, in that pitch-dark cage, with no way out. And then I saw the key, and I opened the door. And after that, every time a problem seemed to arise in this new world, it was like child’s play, as if I were some kind of skilled magician, the sorcerer who makes everything disappear with one stroke of mind. All this as the eggs are cooking. To me, they are strength. They die so that I can live. I put them on two shiny white dishes, with the toast that has popped up in the toaster, and I move to the dining room table, where tea and teacups are waiting. What a beautiful word breakfast is. What a beautiful world.
Beyond what the mind can see is kinder than what it sees—that’s the privilege of an open mind. Kindness resonates with the way things are. Kindness is sipping a cup of tea without the thought that I’m even sipping it. It’s like being my own plant, feeling myself being watered, beyond any thought that that’s what I even need. It’s the sound of rain against the window, the gift of the sound of rain in my ears, the gift of life, which I did nothing to deserve. Kindness prepares what I am to eat in the next season. It even leaves a rainbow. It’s infinite. It’s the hair that protects my head in the sun, the ground that supports the floor. There’s nothing that isn’t kind. A death accomplishes what ordinary life could never do, letting you experience what is beyond identification: the bodiless self, mind infinitely free.
When you realize where you come from, no imagination can move you to believe that you are separate. Everything is seen for what it is, and you understand that no one is in danger of losing anything but his identification. And in that forever good news, in the face of everything that appears to be real, only kindness remains. It’s nothing that can be taught. It’s an experience; it’s self-delight. When I give to you without motive, I am delighted. I act with kindness because I like myself when I do that. The kindness can only be to myself. It doesn’t include anyone else, not even the apparent receiver. I am both giver and receiver, and that’s all that matters.
The whole world belongs to me, because I live in the last story, the last dream: woman sitting in chair with cup of tea. I look out the window, and whatever I see is my world. There’s nothing beyond that, not one thought. This world is enough for me. Anything I ever need to do or be is in this unlimited space. It’s enough to accomplish my purpose, and my purpose is to sit here now and sip my tea. I can imagine a world outside what I can see, and as it happens I prefer this one. It is always more beautiful here, wherever I am, than any story of a future or a past. The here and now is where I can make a difference. It’s what I live out of. Nothing more is required.
This is an excerpt from the best selling book; “A Thousand Names For Joy: Living In Harmony with the Way Things Are”, by Byron Katie with Stephen Mitchell
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