On one Monday, a month for much of the year, I teach a class called deepening practice,

which really is a chance to sit silently for 45 minutes.

And then we have a dialogue about the teachings, questions, and sharing.

And often what comes up in that circle inspires me as to what I'd like to talk about here.

And that happened this Monday when one friend brought up how she is really awakening a sense of compassion,

really deepening her attention to where others are suffering and feeling that tender response

and finding there's just a huge amount of sadness with that.

You know, once you open it's not so easy to cover over.

And so what we really explored is how Chowkyung Trungpa, one teacher says,

that is really there is an unconditional sadness that we feel when we're awake,

that we get it, that yes, they're suffering.

And that's the response of an awake heart.

And it's not the whole picture that there's also beauty and love and mystery.

And if you read the newspapers, you don't get all of what's happened on every continent through all of history,

which is infinite, not countable, human kindnesses.

We don't get that.

And so what happens is our minds have a habit of fixating on what's wrong, what's unpleasant, what's painful.

And it's a bit like Velcro.

It's like when something bad happens, we just not only do we grab onto it,

we rerun it and rehash it and re-digest it.

And it's part of our survival equipment to do so.

It's like if something unpleasant happens, we want to make sure we're geared up to protect from the next go-round.

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