Awakening Loving Kindness

I had a moment on Bart when I was afraid. The guy who got on the train talking very loudly, as if he was on a mobile, about just taking a shot gun and wasting those guys decided to sit directly behind me. He continued his one sided conversation about all sorts of random stuff and fidgeting around in his seat and I was afraid. The only option seemed to get up and get off at the next stop. The next stop seemed a long ways away, so I pulled out the book Kimmie gave me in Hawaii, opened it to any page and started reading.

Here's what I read:
QUOTE
This morning I am going to talk about tonglen, the practice of sending and taking. Some of you have done it before and some of you haven't but in any case, it's always like doing it for the first time.

Tonglen practice has to do with cultivating fearlessness. When you do this practice for sometime you experience your heart as more open. You begin to realize that fear has to do with wanting to protect your heart: you feel that something is going to harm your heart and therefore, you protect it. Again and again, in the budhist teachings, in the Shambhala teachings, and in any tradition that teaches us how to live well, we are encouraged to cultivate fearlessness. How do we do that? Certainly daily meditation is one way, because through it we come to know ourselves so completely and with such gentleness.

END QUOTE

there's quite a bit more, that perhaps I will add when I am not to tired to hold the laptop.

Sweet dreams my friends.