If every single person who has liked you in your
lifetime were to light up on a map, it would create
the most glitteringly beautiful network you
could imagine. Throw in the strangers you’ve been kind
to, the people you’ve made laugh, or inspired
along the way and that star-bright web of you
would be an impressive sight to behold. You’re so
much more than you think you are. You have done
so much more than you realise. You’re trailing a
bright pathway that you don’t even know about.
What a thing. What a thing indeed.
Donna Ashworth
It’s not a new theme that the best-selling Scottish poet Donna Ashworth shares here, this recognition that often we can’t quite see the good we do or what we mean to others. The classic Christmas movie ‘It’s a wonderful life’ comes to my mind, as well as the much more recent book ‘The Midnight Library’ by Matt Haig. But clearly this reminder is important at times when we doubt our own value and what we contribute. And there is something hopeful about having my impact on the people around me affirmed – and inspiring too: how can I lighten the load and brighten the lives of others, in seen and unseen ways?
The spiritual teacher Adyashanti shines another light on this, when he says that “the greatest gift that any of us have is our state of consciousness. We are all transmitting our state of consciousness whether we want to or not.” So it’s not just what we do, but also very much the way that we do it, that is shared with others… and practising mindfulness and compassion no doubt is a powerful contribution to that gift.
And… I’m perennially wrestling with the question how I contribute meaningfully and ‘trail a bright pathway’. What are my gifts to contribute within the hours of each day, within the amount of energy and resources I have available? Where does my ‘deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger’ meet, as Frederick Buechner said? In today’s world with so much dire need for every positive gift of kindness and compassion we could possibly offer, where are each of us best placed to contribute to that?
No easy answers there, but they can be (in Rilke‘s words) ‘living questions’ to ponder and keep alive as intentions, so we may ‘gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer’…
PS if you’d like to explore with others how to bring your compassion into action, there’s an in-person weekend course in Samye Ling designed to do just that…