Sharon Salzburg writes in her book Real Happiness that our intuitive wisdom often tells us to let go, to be peaceful, to relinquish efforts to control. But our cultural conditioning of clinging and control, personal history and people tell us we should hold on to people (we need to get married), pleasure and distractions in order to be happy. Here is a meditation of lovingkindness words, like “May I be open to the unknown, like a bird flying free”. Feel free to modify the well wishing to words that resonate with you.
Please call me by my true names, by Thich Naht Hahn
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Image credit: Fuzzy Rescue, Unsplash
Kindermind Center 