“Interconnected” – Talk 6

This week’s talk, given by Meditation Instructor Eric Weinberg, is entitled, “Opening Heart and Mind”, and is the 6th in our series of talks based on the book Interconnected: Embracing Life in Our Global Society, by His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa.

Recognizing our own responsibility for the way we respond to life’s challenges is key to the happiness of ourselves and others. We have to choose to stay open & it is not always easy to do it. So much of what we see & hear about these days is frightening & saddening. But closing ourselves off from it harms us, diminishing the qualities of compassion that are the doorway to happiness and awakening. If we resolve to work with life as it comes, commit to our own basic goodness and belief in the goodness of others we can grow little by little toward engendering the enlightened qualities we aspire to. Our task at hand involves growing & developing the needed conditions within ourselves so that they strengthen each other and allow us to keep building toward a universal sense of compassion.