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When we practice "Brightening the Lives of All" we re-establish our connection with ourselves so that we are able to engage in relationships lovingly and unconditionally with all whom we encounter. This is the practice of non-judgemental loving awareness. Allowing whatever comes up to come up. Letting it be as it is. This is creating an unconditional loving internal relationship with ourselves. And in turn, this allows us to be unconditionally loving to others. This in turns keeps us out of the "distressed mind" undoing the conditioned patterns and self-grasping autopilot that keeps us so constricted, busy, and stressed.
Each of us has a boundless capacity for kindness. Just as the sun shines on all equally, we too can let our warmth extend outward—offering love, patience, and understanding to all we encounter. When we embody our inner light, we become a source of comfort and inspiration to others – brightening the lives of all.
If we can help one person's day be better, if we can help one person feel less pain today, then we try our best to shine out and brighten their lives. If we can make one person smile more, then we try our best to shine out and brighten their lives. If we can help one person know what to do, help one person deal with their suffering, help one person grow closer to themselves; their true self, then we try our best to shine out and brighten their lives. We can be the warm shining light in the vast sky.
Reflecting on Altruism
Before we begin, we may wish to review Reflecting on Our Spiritual Aspiration as a foundation and preliminary to living an altruistic life.
To begin with living an altruistic life we can take some time to reflect on what altruism means to us. Some questions to begin your reflections could include the following.
🔹 What is altruism?
🔹 Why is it important to me?
🔹 Why is it important for the world?
🔹 How do I know when I am being altruistic?
🔹 How do I know when I am not being altruistic?
🔹 How does it feel when I am more focused on other’s well-being?
🔹 How does it feel when I am only focused on my own happiness, needs and wants?
As you are attending to your normal life activities, interactions and relationships, begin to observe your actions, thoughts, and underlying motivations. Notice how many of your thoughts and actions you would consider to be altruistic, or concerned with the wants and needs of others, and how many are more self-centered, focused on your own wants and needs. It is important to not only look at the big things, but also the small actions and thoughts throughout your day. You may want to keep a log so that you can see patterns unfolding over time. For now, just observe, notice, and log, but do not try to make any changes. We are simply taking an inventory, so that we can learn to observe ourselves more clearly and objectively.
Altruism Reflections
🔹 As I watch and log my actions and thoughts, what percentage would I say are altruistic and what percentage are more self-centered?
🔹 In the past when I have taken actions to help others has my motivation been purely altruistic, or has it been mixed with more self-centered motivations like self-image, moral grandstanding, or seeking praise?
🔹 Have I come to understand the pitfalls of interacting with life from selfcentered motivations? Both personally and societally?
🔹 What are the benefits of living life from a more altruistic motivation? Both personally and societally?
🔹 When we think of the people we know and have met in life, who seem demonstrably happy? Is it people who are mostly focused with their own issues and problems? Or is it people who tend to be very caring and concerned for others?
🔹 What does it feel like when I am the recipient of another’s altruistic actions or care?
If we all take these steps to get to know ourselves objectively and reflect personally in this way, then we will have a good foundation from which to set forth on our altruistic journey together. We will know where we are now, how we want to grow, and will be able to set realistic intentions to work towards during the remainder of the intensive.
Altruistic Aspirations
The Buddha pointed out that since actions and speech stem from the mind, it is the mind which needs to be transformed if we want to transform our actions and the world. If we truly want to act selflessly, then we need to learn to develop a mind which is actually sincerely concerned about the happiness and well-being of others.
Please reflect on your deepest aspiration for how you want to be in the world. This is the north star for the direction in which you want to move your thoughts, actions, and life.
While our aspirations to care for and help others may oftentimes not be congruent with our current mind states and actions, we do not need to be discouraged. The Buddha taught that our aspirations are like seeds. If we water them, they will surely grow and eventually become the driving force in our life which informs all our choices, actions, and thoughts. For this reason, you are encouraged to reflect deeply on your altruistic aspirations every day.
Altruistic Intention
From this more general desire to care for others, we can then consider how we might bring our aspiration into our lives in more specific ways. We can set intentions for how we want to act or show up in particular interactions and relationships in our lives.
These intentions could include specific actions we will take to help others, or specific ways we will check in on others. Intentions could also include how we will encourage and support others with our words when we interact with them.
When setting intentions, it is important to not make them too vague or general. Otherwise, it can be difficult to remember when to act on them and hard to assess our progress with implementing our intentions.
Practice setting intentions for each week and each day aimed at building the muscle of caring for others.
Altruistic Action
In order to fully benefit from our aspirations and intentions, we want to then follow through by acting on them. Acting on our altruistic intentions will reinforce our altruistic mind and benefit both ourselves and the receiver of our actions as we have been learning in our readings and reflections.
In addition to the more thought-out actions and words to support others, we can also experiment with more spontaneous altruistic actions. If we begin to enter the world with a more other-centered mind, opportunities to care for others may become more apparent to us.
Altruistic Thinking
Finally, in addition to altruistic aspiration, intentions, and actions, we also want to begin working with the undercurrent of thought running through our minds all day long. Often, much of our thinking is focused on meeting our own needs and desires.
We have already been cultivating mindfulness of our thoughts by observing our minds. Now, in addition to observing our thoughts, we can begin to experiment with transforming self-based thinking into thoughts about benefiting others.
We could set specific times where we will consciously cultivate thinking of others. For instance, if we know we usually wake up in the morning worried about our todo list, we could instead take some time in the morning to think about how we might support and bring happiness to others. Or, whenever we notice our mind focusing on ourselves, i.e. only our needs and wants, we could turn it around and put in its place thoughts of others.
May our aspirations to brighten the lives of all come to fruition as we journey together in this life!
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