Cattāri Brahmavihārā

The practice of welcoming adversity as a way of training the mind and testing one’s progress along the path of cultivating a boundless heart is one which has proven to be both incredibly fruitful and understandably difficult.

As my own spiritual power and energy ebbs and flows so too dos my ability to skillfully practice the such mind training techniques. I mentioned in an earlier post that, for some time, I was able to practice without allowing compassion to degenerate into resentment and self-flagellation but somewhere along the way I lost the thread. Luckily for me I have at least enough of an intuition to collocate the problem in my own mind rather than with the teachings themselves and am beginning to feel out the way back through the fog and darkness of delusion, greed and aversion.

Part and parcel of clearing the ground for such intuitions has been a return to heart focused metta practices and a daily regimen of chanting refuges, precepts, suttas and teachings intended to mold the mind and heart and incline them towards metta-karuna. I’ve been working with a new version of my Daily Practice book for a little over a month and a half and when I feel it’s ready I’ll post a link. Until then, may I welcome adversity with good cheer and embrace every opportunity to polish the heart. Sukhitaa hontu!