The Impetus of Suffering

Today I am beleagured by news of shootings. A guman in Texas kills 12, a gunman in Florida kills a former co-worker. I have known for a while that this sort of news makes a great way to sharpen some Buddhist practices. It opens the heart if we allow it.

For phowa practitioners, it's an opportunity to practice. The same goes for those who practice tonglen, and those doing the Chernrezig ngondro. These circumstances allow us to see that the shooter is a victim of their own choices, and that beyond those they simply kill, there are a host of other victims. There are those that are injured. There are the families of those slain: the parents, the  children, the spouses, grandparents, and siblings. There are uninjured witnesses. And then the community at large that. Will they all react to this sort of irrational violence with compassion? Not likely. Some will move a step closer to the anger and confusion that has driven these two shooters to do what they did: make a poor choice.

It isn't exactly easy to allow oneself to enter into this kind of practicing. It is in my mind though, what learning compassion is all about. In days gone by, we might never have heard about either. But these days, with instant news acceess, we do. Are we as people any different than our predecessors? I sometimes think so. Not necessarily better, but we are different.And the fact that Buddhism as we vajrayana practitioners know it has slipped out of the Tibetan high lands to grace the West leads me to believe that there is definitely something changing. Maybe it is the Age of Aqaurius dawning. I'm not too inclined to think it's the 2012 end of the world. A lot of negativity has been functioning in this world for a long time. It seems the positive energies are beginning to emerge in definite grassroots ways.

And we can help, just by practicing.