Today as I sat to meditate, I was so hungry. My stomach was growling. My blood sugar was low. I thought about abandoning my meditation and go make some breakfast! Delicious soft boiled eggs kept floating across the backs of my eyelids, tempting me to leave my mat.
Then I remembered the teachings of Richard Rohr and Pema Chödrön. This hunger I felt was a universal feeling. Every human has been hungry at some point in their lives. And some are hungry all the time.
I have never really known hunger. The long-lasting hunger that comes from a long-term lack of food and nutrition. So I can bear these tummy rumbles. I can understand the hunger of humanity better if I sit with my individual hunger. I move my sense of hunger from myself out into the world and it becomes a prayer. How else can a suburban, middle class, white woman relate to this suffering? I've never been hungry for long. I bring my small suffering to the suffering of all and our perceived separation dissolves. There is no longer me and other, or us and them. There is only us.
As Pema teaches, breathe in the feeling. Breathe out expansion.
As I look at the people of Ukraine, I have never known war. But I have known fighting with family and friends. I have lost things I hold dear. I have seen things happen that I wished I could stop. So I will sit with these feelings as a prayer of solidarity and shared burden. And I pray this will somehow make it's way to those who need it and they will feel hope and support. I believe this matters.
Here are more ways we can help: NPR Article
May you bring your suffering to the suffering of all, and may we all lesson the burdens of the world as we do.
Much love
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