May I Be Happy
Cyndi Lee WINTER 2012
tricycle
Practicing with the four
traditional lovingkindness slogans
Walking along the Rhine
River during my lunch break from teaching yoga in Basel,
Switzerland, I felt mellow and full of gratitude to have such a
wonderful job opportunity. Then my phone started to vibrate.
Instantly my mood shifted, and a powerful sense of urgency took
hold of me. It was like a Rube Goldberg chain reaction—I was
balancing a cappuccino in one hand, fighting an uncooperative purse
zipper with the other, trying to keep my glasses on my nose, and
worrying that someone was calling from my mother’s nursing
home.
As my phone rang a thought
flashed through my mind: “Since everybody who knows me knows I am
in Europe and there is a five-hour time difference, this must be
important and I’d better answer!” My life was built on the idea
that taking care of my mom and my students and my business and my
friends and my dog must come before my own needs, including the
needs for space, peacefulness, and quiet appreciation of
life.
I realized I was working
myself into a dither by letting my phone be the boss of me. And
why? Out of sheer habit. My need to answer the phone was part of an
automatic-pilot way of thinking that told me it was wrong and
selfish to put myself first.
After the incident in Basel
I got to a place where I felt stuck. I had been badly hurt by a
dear friend who told me that since I hadn’t been there for her when
she needed me, she was turning her back on our friendship. It was
the last straw for me. How could she abandon me when my life was so
hard already? I was stuck in a puddle of anger, pain, and betrayal.
I told myself that I wanted to forgive and forget, and I knew that
my resentment was hurting me, but I couldn’t seem to let go of
it.
Then I went to hear
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, a nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition,
give a talk. During the talk, Jetsunma paused and said in a soft
voice, “Let go. Let go. Let go.” It was then that I knew I was
ready to let go.
Jetsunma granted my request
for a meeting and greeted me at the door with a big hug. She
offered me a cup of tea and a seat on her couch. We sat facing each
other with our legs crossed, and I told her how I felt hurt by my
friend’s accusations that I had not been a good friend, that I had
not given her the attention she needed.
When I had finished
speaking Jetsunma held my hand and simply said, “You must take this
onto your path.” She told me that I had to let go and forgive
everyone. “And that includes yourself,” she said. Aha! How had I
forgotten that so completely?
Jetsunma suggested that I
begin practicing maitri for myself. Like many Buddhist
practitioners, I’ve always loved the practice of maitri, or
lovingkindness. I learned to use this practice as a method for
cultivating genuine caring and good will for others. Practicing
maitri toward others fits nicely with my bodhisattva vow, a
commitment to living one’s life in a way that is helpful to all
living beings.
The practice of maitri is
deceptively simple. You repeat these four lines:
May you be happy
May you be
healthy
May you be safe
May you live with
ease
Each time you recite the
sequence of lines, you visualize a different category of sentient
being:
Those you love
Those you don’t
love
Those you have never
met
These three categories
cover the entire spectrum of how we relate to other beings:
attachment, aversion, and ignorance.
Practicing maitri helps to
soften the boundaries of these categories. It opens our hearts and
reminds us of our commonality with everyone. When we really see, in
our mind’s eye, a person we think we don’t like, and instead of
solidifying our reasons for hatred we honestly wish them happiness,
good health, safety, and an easeful life, we start to forget what
we thought we hated and why we felt that way in the first place. A
sense of equanimity toward everyone arises as we do this
practice—we feel compassion for those who were once invisible to
us, and our disregard and apathy morph into concern for their
well-being and safety.
And just as we sometimes
feel love or hatred toward others, sometimes we feel love toward
ourselves, sometimes we hate ourselves, and sometimes, now and
then, we don’t even notice ourselves. As a Buddhist, if my focus is
truly to help others, I need to work with these emotions toward
myself. Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo reminded me that walking the
bodhisattva path—dedicating one’s life to the benefit of all
beings—includes doing whatever we can to help ourselves be happy
and free.
The little cell phone drama
in Basel was not such a big deal, but if you add up all the moments
when you become exhausted or stressed out because of the mistaken
sense that you are doing something for someone else, those moments
become a pile of resentment, isolation, and feelings of
depletion.
Many of us have people who
need and depend on us. How can we really be helpful to others when
we are depleted? What good are we to others when our generosity has
shriveled and our patience has run out? I’d like to be more loving,
but I also know it is my responsibility to give myself time, space,
sleep, exercise, fun, and healthy meals. When I take the time to
provide myself with those things, I find that I have more goodness
to give to others.
Thinking of yourself first,
when your goal is to help others, might seem counterintuitive, but
in fact it is the only way it can work. In the end, the notion of
putting oneself last is really an inside-out form of
self-cherishing. That’s why during pre-flight instructions the
flight attendant says to put on your own oxygen mask first, and
then put on your child’s mask. When we are happy, healthy, safe,
and at ease, we can model those qualities for others as well as
make choices and take action from a place of sanity and
lovingkindness. The following maitri practice will help you to open
your heart and connect to the sentient beings around
you.