TEACHER: James Maskalyk
THEME: Becoming what we’re looking for.
James: I’ve started a Stanford course on compassion for doctors and psychologists—funded by the Dalai Lama’s Mind and Life Institute—where practice meets neuroscience. In the first class we were asked to name an intention, and I realized mine wasn’t to be there for my patients; I feel practiced there. It was to find compassion for the person who parked in the bike lane and pushed me into four lanes of Toronto traffic. For the aggravation that flares online when an opinion hits a belief I cherish. For the brave face I felt obligated to wear, for the private pains I never had language to share.
A cry of distress, from the world or within ourselves, is a sensory jolt to the nervous system. Left alone, it stays in shock. Met with kindness, it becomes care.
That’s the practice: still the mind, open the antennae, and become the ground we are looking for.
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