Bless me into usefulness
Photo credit: Yantar Yoga
What is my purpose in this life? All of us have asked ourselves this question at one time or the other, and maybe especially during the pandemic when many of our daily rituals have been uprooted. The disruption has been painful for sure, but it also provides a valuable opportunity to pause and examine the larger picture. What impact do I have on the people and the planet not just through my job, but though what I do in my spare time, what I eat, and how I relate to others - the entirety of who and how I am? Finding the answer is a life-long journey, but the key word in my experience is compassion. So the smaller question of how we can be most useful toward a larger purpose through whatever we do on a given day is worth asking every morning.
I’ve been reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche and this passage on how to direct your compassion struck me. He gives us the words of Buddhist wisdom: “Pray that you benefit all who come in contact with you, and help them transform their suffering and their lives.” Practicing and teaching yoga has been that for me, a prayer in action. I didn’t enter my yoga teacher training with the mindset of becoming a teacher, I mostly just wanted to take my practice to the next level. But I left feeling the need to share whatever gifts I received - and I’m not talking here just about the physical asana practice. The gifts of all the Yamas and Niyamas and especially swadhyaya, which means self-study through inspired texts and, as importantly, turning the mirror of reflection upon myself.
Shantideva was an 8th century CE Indian philosopher, Buddhist monk, poet, and scholar. Sogyal Rinpoche quotes this beautiful prayer attributed to him:
May I be a protector to those without protection,
A leader for those who journey,
And a boat, a bridge, a passage
For those desiring the further shore.
May the pain of every living creature
Be completely cleared away. (…)
Just like space and the great elements such as earth,
May I always support the life
Of all the boundless creatures.
The word compassion comes from Latin compati, which means “to suffer with.” There is a beautiful Tibetan meditative practice called Tonglen where, after evoking and resting in the nature of the mind, we breathe in and out mindfully, with each breath exchanging hurt and suffering in ourselves or others for love and compassion, acceptance and embrace. That’s a good start because compassionate action begins with the state of mind.
So ask yourself: What do I want to offer? What is my intention? What seeds of the emerging future do I want to sow? Yantra in Sanskrit means “instrument” - may we all be the instruments of compassion in the world.