May You Be Peaceful

We learnt a simple practice yesterday. To feel love for another without judgement, with pure intention, by reciting some simple lines in your mind. I have chosen the lines “May you be peaceful, may you be loved, may you be free from suffering”. This is not more contrived than anything else in our lives. Since last night I have been wishing this to as many living beings as possible, to my kids, the trees, the crows, the grass, the insects, but also (and this is much harder) to the people I know and encounter. I wished it for the dearest boy I know, with the nicest face (who is predictably camera shy), after he beat me for the zillionth time in chess, and again at bedtime. I wished it for my mom. For the lady that cooks, for my dad, for the ignorant people in my animal group, and I will wish it for all the students I teach today, irrespective of how annoying they are. It is very simple, but done with pure intention it really throws you open, makes you expand. I hope that when I am tired and not as fresh as I am right now, I can equally or closely enough apply myself to this task.