Be Kind To Every Living Thing

I remember in my Reiki 1 class when we were discussing the Precepts and, as I looked at this one, I thought "Of course, that means we take care of the environment, be nice to people and animals and treat them with respect, etc. etc." Imagine my surprise when my teacher suggested that, first and foremost, we needed to be kind to ourselves!


I guess it came as a surprise to me because, frankly, I'm not very good at it. I referenced a book in my last blog post called "Radical Acceptance - Embracing Your Life With The Heart Of A Buddha" by Tara Brach and she begins the book with this statement "Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering." Yep. That describes me to a T. Both the belief AND the attendant suffering.

But it makes sense, doesn't it? Until we can be gentle with ourselves and treat ourselves with kindness, we cannot be gentle and kind to another living being. Especially around our shortcomings. We all have them. It’s part of being human. When we can have compassion in the face of our own mistakes, we will know what someone else is feeling when they mess up and can treat them with loving kindness instead of derision and disdain. I know for me, that derision and disdain that I often feel towards others is really about me.

That said, I think we have to be careful because kindness, doing for others, doing for this cause and that movement, can also be a cover up for our own feelings of unworthiness.

So what does this mean in terms of our day-to-day lives? Remember the Golden Rule we all learned in grade school – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? That might be a good place to start. What about animals, pets or otherwise? Plants? Bugs? Personally, I have a difficult time looking the other way when there is a spider dangling from the ceiling in front of my face as I’m working out on my elliptical. But why? What am I afraid of? Well, what if it was poisonous? Hmmm. That’s a tough one, though I don't think there are any where I live...

I think the difficulty is that when we give ourselves permission to kill that spider or fly, or whatever, it’s easier to give ourselves permission to not care about the bird who flies into a window or the bear caught in a horribly painful trap, the homeless animals, the homeless people…and then where does it end?

Does that mean we beat ourselves up if we accidentally step on a bug? No, but it might mean that we stop for a moment the next time we encounter one and consider whether we might be able to shoo it out the door or...just let it be.

What about learning to sit with and breathe through those uncomfortable feelings instead of trying to avoid them or cover them, make up for them, by numbing out with a substance or an activity? When we can do that, we learn that feelings pass. We learn that our feelings are not to be feared and they are not necessarily the truth of who we are. We learn that often, underneath the most uncomfortable feelings, there is something that needs our love and acceptance.

Being kind to all living things. Revering life, all of life, in all its forms. Especially our own.

Namaste,
Janet