Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN

THE FOUR REMEMBRANCES Pause for Presence Say Yes to What’s Here Turn Toward Love Rest in Awareness

It’s entirely natural to want to feel special, to want to be treated in certain ways, to want a particular person as a partner. Yet this wanting can cause suffering if it takes over. Our attention becomes fixated on an external source, as if who we are and our entire well-being depended on someone relating to us in a certain way. The purpose of Tra

we need to realize that these thoughts or beliefs are, as the Zen teachings say, like the finger pointing to the moon, not the moon itself.

“Our issues are in our tissues.”

Between the stimulus and the response there is a space, and in that space is your power and your freedom. • VIKTOR FRANKL The deepest transformations in our lives come down to something very simple: We learn to respond, not react, to what is going on inside us.

Instead of thinking about what’s going on, keep bringing your attention to your body, directly contacting the felt sense and sensations of your most vulnerable place. Once you are fully present, listen for what this place truly needs to begin healing.

When I assume the facial expression and body posture that best reflect these feelings and emotions, what do I notice?

Sense that you have the space of awareness to include everything you’ve discovered, that you can fully allow it to be as it is. You can even say yes to the parts of you that are saying no and resisting what’s happening.

The primary activity of every living creature is to cling to life and avoid threats. We have a membrane or scales or skin or shell to protect us. We have reflexes and skills and strategies to make our way. Our brains are designed to perceive separateness and react to danger. When we humans emerged as life-forms on this planet, we were already organ