At the “end of the world”

No, I don’t think the world is going to end. There is a large misunderstanding about what the Mayan Calendar ending today means. Those who understand the language of the calendar tell us that it is the end of an era and the opening of a new. Not so different from Vedic tradition which says this is the end of the Kali yuga and the opening of the next yuga (only 20K years long!)  But if this is the end, let it be the end of all that which does not serve us. And from the Buddhist  tradition of Metha here is a variation from Gwynne Warner in Portland. Use it to help yourself and all those less fortunate:

“Step 1: Breathe in suffering. The worst thing that ever happened to you. That sunk feeling. That thing you wish you could take back. Recapitulate it in breaths. The blackness, the sickness, the fibrous seething rage, the sticky-scratchy, inconsolable weight of it. Take in the unbearableness. You may want to escape. Press on. Go beyond the embrace. Inhale the pain in to your every cell. You won’t die. You’re going to expand. Keep breathing in the misery.

You’re on the verge of a miracle.

Step 2: Now breathe out joy. Soothing golden warmth. Luminous flying birds of clarity. Electric rays of smiling karate chops. Feel your lungs as powerful creative engines of healing and righteousness. Pulsate rapture. Let happiness emerge from the fractures. Let scar tissue become bridges that lead to a festival of relief and dancing. See joy. Feel joy. Hear joy. Sing joy. Breathe love into every cell of the situation.

Now do it for other people’s suffering. Please. For that homeless man on the street, in winter. Cold and demoralized. Inhale his agony. Exhale comfort and transformation. The jobless folks with families to feed. Cancer patients fighting to live. People gone mad. Soldiers who kill and the families they destroy. Take in the wreckage. Turn it into light and give back compassion and tenderness.

When your heart is heavy, when you want to feel alive…
Acknowledge the dark. And take the light into your own hands.”