A friend recommended this book, and it came at the perfect time. I was overwhelmed with sense of heaviness and discouraged by the seemingly endless cycles of bad news punctuated with unprecedented gun violence, racial injustice, police brutality, political hypocrisy, habitat destruction, species extinction, and finger pointing, all while millions are experiencing poverty, isolation and pandemic illnesses. Oh, so much suffering!

Pema’s wisdom lightens my burden and I see where I need to open my own heart, work to free myself from stuck habitual patterns, stay present with my pain/emotions and not let it escalate into action, be conscious of process of polarization that increase our feelings of separateness.

“An awakened heart begins with the wish to be free from whatever gets in the way of our helping others.

Suffering comes from confusion of mind.

People are cruel and hurt each other out of ignorance of our interconnectedness with each other and our own basic goodness.

Countless animals and people are suffering at this very moment. But how much can we do to prevent that? If we’re on the roof of a monastery witnessing boys stone a puppy, maybe all we can do in that moment is to not turn away and let the unfolding tragedy deepen our Bodhicitta.

Then we can let ourselves get curious about what causes people to hurt animals in the first place. Instead of seeing the boys behavior as something alien to us, we can look for its roots within ourselves. Does the aggression or blindness that lies behind such acts dwell within our own heart. If we can find common ground in this way, then maybe the next time we encounter something similar will be in a better position to communicate. And when we fully awaken to our true nature, we will have a much better ability to influence others.

The supreme vision of Bodhicitta is to help every single living being awaken to their true nature. The only way to accomplish this first by attaining enlightenment ourselves.

When we’re really in touch with longing to help others, and our lives are committed to that purpose, we can consider ourselves among the most fortunate people on this earth.

If you have a tendency to feel aggressive toward the fly, you can go with that feeling, slap and kill the fly. That becomes a further means of blockage, sowing more seeds of aggression and insensitivity, which hinders process of awakening the heart.

On other hand, even if this goes against tendencies, you can try having a friendly response, you can look at it in a kind way, let it fly away.

This transforms the fly’s visit from an annoying event into opportunity for sowing seeds of kindness and tolerance, and appreciating the sacredness of life. It turns into a small way of becoming more open hearted and open minded. Freeing yourself.

We are not doomed. We can begin right now. There’s always something small we can do to alter our habitual response a little bit, it can be taking a few conscious breaths or walking around the block to change the energy, interrupt process of escalating our suffering in the same exact habitual way over and over.

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