I ran across a quote from the Buddha this week that touched me with its simplicity and wisdom:
“Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”
We have but to look around us to see that humanity is in need of renewal—on so many levels. We need a renewal of our ideals, of our morality, of our sense of decency and of neighborliness. We need to renew our vision of what humanity can accomplish, of our reverence for life itself and of our personal responsibility to contribute to life with whatever gifts we have been given.
It seems a monumental task sometimes. So much is broken and crumbling; so much is in need of healing and repair.
And yet, in one simple sentence, the Buddha has given us the way. Be kind. Care about each other. Do what you can to add ease to someone’s day. That’s where all healing beings, after all—in one heart opening to another.
In the neighborhood grocery I frequent, a special young woman works as a clerk. She looks each customer in the eye and smiles a cheerful hello as if she were greeting an old friend that she hadn’t seen for a long time. And without fail, the customers smile back and each one, no matter how weary or old or burdened, leaves the store feeling renewed. It doesn’t take much. One heart, opening to another.
Who knows? Maybe her smile changed someone’s attitude, prevented an argument, eased someone’s loneliness. Maybe it got passed on. Maybe it spread to a hundred people before the day was through, and the world was made a lighter place, a hundred times over.
It sounds like a trifling thing, a friendly smile. But once I heard about a man who was on his way to jump off a bridge and end his life when the eye contact and a smile of a stranger shot a ray of hope into him and gave him the courage to let his life continue on.
We get lost in our electronic gadgets, ignoring the person beside us while we busily fiddle with our little hand-held screens. We forget to speak to one another face to face, and more importantly, to listen to one another with caring and compassion and interest. And yet we’re starved for human contact, for conversation, for an hour spent with an engaged companion who is as interested in us as in herself, for the touch of a hand, the sharing of ideas and laughter and play.
To live a life of service and compassion means to live with awareness of the needs of others, and to address those needs with whatever level of kindness you’re willing and able to provide at the time. Your actions don’t have to be grand or daring. Service doesn’t have to be a profession of anything except your empathy. Profess that, in whatever way you can. Let your heart be generous and your words be kind. Do that, and you will have done your part to make the world a brighter place.
Wishing you a week of gentleness and joy.
Warmly,
Susan
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay