Handshake V

We are working through the 5 points of Handshake Practice (Compassionate Presence to Feelings).

Recall that the first four points were:

1. Remember Who You Are! (your true nature is innate awareness, openness, and compassion)
2. Mind Your Body (dropping the story line and being fully present with the sensations in the body)
3. You Are Not Your Feelings, You Are Not Your Thoughts (recognizing the broader awareness that holds our thoughts and feelings as part of our total experience, allowing us to be present to them without completely identifying with them)
4. Rest in Space (noticing the gaps between thoughts and resting in that limitless awareness)

And now we come to the final point:

5. Share the Bliss

Okay, maybe your first question is “What Bliss?” Rather than “far out,” you can translate Bliss as Peaceful Joy.

We have all been practicing together for a while and, perhaps, our days are not filled with long periods of absolute joy and compassion. However, if we look back to times before we started our spiritual journey, or even earlier times within our journey, we come to realize that we are different now.

We can recognize that we are always held in care and compassion by the benefactors in our life.

We have learned practices that we can take off the cushion, into our daily lives, that ease our suffering.

We have grown to see that others are just like us in their true nature, and are suffering just as we are.

We have a different view of the world and perhaps a different view of ourselves.

These changes that we see in ourselves, and in how we see the world, give us the confidence and faith that we are on a path that cultivates wholesome virtues and has changed our lives for the better. Maybe not all Bliss, but better.

Here are Tsoknyi Rinpoche’s words on this point.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to get caught up in the sense of well-being that arises when our hearts and minds open and to forget the most essential lesson that the Buddha tried to instill in us as the deepest of all teachings: that until all of us are free, none of us are free. Rather than rest in our own comfort zones, our contentment dimming our awareness of the pain and hardship that others around us may be feeling, we must remember that the ultimate goal of opening our hearts and minds is to free all living creatures from their patterns so that they can experience the openness, wisdom, and warmth that is the essence of our being.

Buddha nature is infinite; beings in need of awakening are infinite; and our journey, once begun, is never done.

Here are Lama John’s words on this point.

In our Sustainable Compassion practices, we engage with the Extending Mode; sending our love, compassion, and best wishes to those we care about. Then we move to sending our best wishes to strangers, and, finally, as we become more confident with the practice, to those difficult ones in our life. This practice ‘on the cushion (or chair)’ primes us to be more ready to send our best thoughts to those we meet each day. As we do this each day, our view of the world changes to be inclusive and accepting of others. Then we are more willing to share our time, energy, and material goods with others outside of the practice setting in our day-to-day life.

I am inclined to translate this last point slightly differently.

5. [ALT] Sharing Is Bliss.

Looked at from this viewpoint, everything we do to help others brings a sense of lightness and uplift to our own lives.