iceskate guy

I've been a lot on the grumpy side the past couple of days and I thought I could use some help shifting my perspective a bit so I tried out a meditation this morning that I hadn't done in a long while. I do the lovingkindness meditation fairly regularly and I can attest to how well this works for shifting your focus and perspective. This morning, however, I chose to do a meditation focused on compassion.

You can begin by repeating the phrase "May I be free of suffering and pain, may I be filled with peace." After you have warmed up to yourself, feel the compassion opening your heart, you can switch to someone you care about- a good friend or family member- and offer the phrase to them, "May my good friend be free of suffering and pain, may she be filled with peace." You continue with that person until you feel your heart open more and move the phrase back to yourself. You imagine your heart opening further for yourself, offering yourself an open and compassionate heart, a genuine hope that you will be free of suffering, that you will be filled with peace. From there you can continue if you choose to offer compassion to others in your life, moving out to all beings, continuing with the phrase, "May all beings be free from suffering and pain, may all beings be filled with peace."

Later on today when I took Eva to her ice skating lessons, I was having a lapse in my being-filled-with-peace-ness from my meditation earlier. I was irritated with the ice skate guy, the one who gave us our skates and helped me sign in for our lessons. My fuse has been a little shorter lately and it had already been shortened considerably on the way to the lessons.

While I was putting on my skates and feeling irritated with ice skate guy, I decided to try directing a little abbreviated compassion his way to see if I could shift my own irritation a little. So, while I laced up my skates, I thought to myself, "May ice skate guy be free of suffering and pain, may he be filled with peace." After a couple of rounds the kids were ready to go upstairs and Eva was ready to skate.

A little while later, I had to go in and talk with ice skate guy again. There was no one else around in the office and I needed his help with my guest passes. Imagine my surprise to find that he was not nearly as irritating as before. And I don't think he found me to be quite as befuddling as he had earlier either. In fact, he smiled. He gave me new guest passes after I had messed up my other ones. He offered them! The transaction with the guest passes turned out to be a breeze, dare I say pleasant? Well, maybe not pleasant, but surely far from irritating. Amazing really, particularly after my interaction with him earlier and frankly, after all of my other interactions with him over the last three weeks at the ice skating rink.

I am hooked. Convinced. A little compassion definitely goes a long way.