Often in our normal daily life, we find it very hard to be compassionate to ourselves, let alone others. One of the reasons we find this so hard to do is because our mind, body and energy are like frozen water – frozen with jealousy, fear, worry, anger, ignorance, etc. If a well is frozen, we can not drink from it, let alone share its water with others.
To make the well drinkable, we need to melt the frozen water with the heat of our meditation practice and the heat of compassion. Through focused meditation practices and breathing deeply into our belly, we can generate an inner warmth which melts away tension in our body, mind and energy. By showing more compassion to ourselves and others, we start to melt our jealousy, worry, fear, ignorance etc. with the warmth of our compassionate heart.
Through these practices and through compassion, we start to feel the free flowing river welling up from deep within our compassionate heart. Not only does this river give energy, nutrition, and clarity to our own body, mind, and energy but it also allows us to now share this water freely with others so that they can reap its benefit as well.
Often when our well doesn’t flow so freely, we only want to share the water of compassion with people we know. And even then we kind of say; “you only get one cup, but you over there, because I like you a bit better you get 5 cups.” But this kind of thinking will freeze our water again; it is limiting. This also can happen because we are afraid that our well will run dry if we share it too freely. However when we practice enough, not only do we start to let go of fear, but also we start to realize that this well – this universal well – has an unlimited flow and will never run dry. Thus no matter how much we give, there always will be enough for ourselves and others.
However when others come and stand at the banks of our well to drink from it, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, depending on what they need, they might unknowingly kick some dirt into the well. This is why we need to keep practicing the meditation practices even if we feel our water is flowing freely; we have to clear the water of sediments so that it stays fresh and clean.
Fresh and clean water which streams from our flowing well of compassion has no limits; there is no giver of water, no receiver of water, it is just water, flowing freely.
So if at times the water in our well feels frozen with challenging thoughts, emotions or attachments, we can return to our practices, our meditations, and our compassionate heart, let it go and let it flow.
Photos by Valérie Steff, Brasil