Our television news and sometimes our daily lives can be heavy with trouble, grief, suffering, pain, anguish and anxiety.Maybe being sick for a month is why I loved the following phrase I heard at St. Anne's Byzantine Catholic Church this morning: "Now set aside all earthly cares."
Setting aside our earthly cares doesn't mean we stop being responsible or concerned. We aren't directed to abandon or ignore our cares... just to set them aside for a moment.
Because all of us need moments of silence, of peace, of quietude. We need to set aside our worries so we can let the fresh breeze of life and love sweep in. We need to empty ourselves in order to receive what we need, to hear that small voice within. We need time and space to meditate.
Friday night, I read a Buddhist meditation, written by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, the meditation master who has founded more than 1000 Kadampa Meditation Centers around the world. Sitting at the Trinity Meditation Center here in New Port Richey, I found these words from Geshe's The New Meditation Handbook so beautiful:
May everyone be happy.
May everyone be free from misery.
May no one ever be separated from their happiness.
May everyone have equanimity, free from hatred and attachment.
In other words, may all set aside their earthly cares.
NOTE: I took the picture of Buddha in Sri Lanka. The line drawing of Jesus, drawn with one single stroke of the pen, in 1884.
That's my girl, Bethany deaaaaaa.Thank you. MOM
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