Caring for One Another
Today we celebrate an Inauguration as well as the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., so it is a day when Americans come together. I continue to mine the book, Living Beautifully With Uncertainty and Change , by Pema Chödrön, for inspiration for my yoga classes, and thus chose as my theme - "committing to take care of one another," as we worked through a variety of partner poses and assists. Caring for one another evokes compassion - a theme also evident in the events and speeches of the day. Still, it is not a simple thing for us to do, for as Pema notes: " Compassion is threatening to the ego. We might think of it as something warm and soothing, but actually it's very raw. When we set out to support other beings, when we go so far as to stand in their shoes, when we aspire to never close down to anyone, we quickly find ourselves in the uncomfortable territory of 'life not on my terms.' The second commitment, traditionally known as the Bodhisattva Vow...