2014: I Resolve to be a Healing Presence

How about this for a New Year's Resolution: 

"Devote yourself to the lifelong process of learning to be a healing presence in the midst of the world. Be resolved to continue living in this way until the last traces of suffering dissolve in love and only love is left." Dr. James Finley, The Contemplative Way

Some of you may recognize this as the Buddhist way of the bodhisattva. Instead of living our lives reacting to desires, we choose to live consciously, being present to reality, including suffering and how we contribute to suffering, seeing that the fate of humankind lies within each of us.

As human beings, according to Dr. Finley, we become free and whole when we heal seven key wounds. I invite you to join me in these New Year's Resolutions, serving the primary resolve to be a healing presence:  

1. Notice how you hold back from experience in daily life, how you keep suffering slightly out of focus. Instead, ground yourself in human experience and take responsibility to heal your relationships with others.
2. Taste every moment, have faith in the subtle, intuitive flashes of awakening that reveal you are not only ego; you are also spirit. 
3. Witness and be present to the dysfunctional patterns that arise from ego. 
4. Learn to observe, without judgment, how your ego patterns operate. 
5. Keep circling back to heal those tenacious ego patterns; cultivating your willingness to engage with suffering until there is no more suffering. 
6. Share what hurts the most with someone who will not evade or abandon you, be present to others in the intimacy of their sorrow. 
7. Turn on the news and open your heart to the world; allow yourself to be smitten with the beauty of the wounded world and become an ongoing source of wholeness.