Wake up grateful: an operating manual for coping in perilous times
“Dhyana”. 2018. Watercolor and acrylic on paper. John Barrett I wrote this sometime ago, when I felt like I was losing my sense of equanimity and meditative discipline. I find myself at a similar point again and I suspect that I'm not the only person who may feel that way. For that reason, I'm offering a sort of general version that you may use according to your disposition. Before going to sleep: dedicate whatever merit or goodness you may have inadvertently accrued to all beings. Simply think (at first, this is all going to be a kind of "intellectual" enterprise; thinking will give way to a generally felt sense of more serious intention and aspiration) that all beings should be happy and are worthy of love. Start with those closest to you, then those to whom you have neutral feelings (the masses of people who you meet momentarily and even those you don't and will never meet), and lastly, even those for whom you hold great antipathy or enmity. These are people...