Confrontational Compassion

From the Tarot de St. Croix, Strength; from the Archetype Cards, Hero/Heroine:

To find our way to courage requires us to face the lion,

but to stand by our courage requires us to be the lion.

—James Ricklef

          My inner lion wants to protect me and help me reach my full potential. Unfortunately, it gets triggered by fear and often reacts with roars and rage, neither of which has been beneficial to me or my relationships. To face my lion means to see clearly what scares me, find the courage to accept what is real, and search for sane ways to deal with it. But that lion can come in useful when I need to be the Heroine - taking on my own challenges or working to right an injustice. But it means not letting fear or anger color my vision, seeing what I believe to be true rather than the truth itself. Authentic compassion can let me stand up and work for what is right without the trail of destruction often left by the motivational factors of anger and fear.

 Unlike self-righteous anger, which hates the “bad ones” on behalf of the “good ones,” confrontational compassion protects all by challenging all differently—those suffering injustices and those inflicting them. —John Makransky

EMBRACING DIFFICULT EMOTIONS

By John Makransky

Genuine love and compassion make us feel safe because they express the safety of their source—the natural kindness of our mind’s deepest nature, what Tsoknyi Rinpoche calls “essence love.” In this meditation, we experience emotions such as fear and anger in a field of absolute loving compassion that communicates the innate kindness in the underlying nature of our minds. When we become very familiar with such practice, painful emotions like fear and anger help evoke the compassionate energy in the depth of our being that returns us to our deepest wisdom.

1. Identifying a benefactor from your life. Recall a moment with someone you liked very much to be near—with whom you felt happy, well, safe, loved—such as a moment with a favorite relative, teacher, camp counselor, mentor. A moment with someone, somewhere, that makes you happy to recall, grateful that they were in your life.

2. Receiving loving energy into body and mind. Imagine that person present to you now in that way. Feel the happiness of holding them in mind. Sense them communing with you in the fundamental goodness of your being, your deep worthiness beyond judgment, wishing for your deep well-being, happiness, peace. Imagine their loving energy as a shower of soft, healing radiance that bathes your whole body and mind, every part of you. Explore just opening and accepting that loving wish and energy—receiving its gentle radiance into every part of your body, permitting each area of tension to soften under its touch. Receive this tender radiance into every cell, every drop of blood—every part of you loved in its very being.

Then receive this gentle shower of loving energy into every part of your mind—every feeling of tension, anxiety, frustration, anger, longing, sadness, or joy. Let such feelings arise and be bathed in this energy. Let every thought and feeling, even as it arises, be permeated by this healing energy—every part of you loved in its very being.

3. Releasing the visualization into the innate kindness of our original awareness. Receive this loving energy into the subtlest feelings of holding on to your self; of holding on to anything at all. Let go of the visualization, release all reference points, and just be merged into oneness with that gentle energy. Let the mind release into its own natural openness. All senses wide open, mind totally open, unconfined, unrestricted. Let this expanse of openness and awareness itself do the knowing, the meditating. Let all feelings, knots of energy, and worry be healed in this space of deep allowing, accepting, and letting be. Let all be touched and healed by the innate kindness and deep acceptance of this inner space of mind.