Cultivating Inner Peace

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"Jackson" - Encaustic Painting on Canvas, 20"x16"
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​Treat all beings as you yourself wish to be treated.
​Keep your spiritual practice simple. There’s nothing complicated in the golden rule. The effort required is observation and awareness of our thoughts, words and actions. It requires thinking before speaking and taking action. It requires considering what impact those words and actions will have on others, and asking ourselves how we would feel if we are on the receiving end. This also requires close examination of how we do, in truth, treat ourselves.
 From the driver who aggravates you on the road and you want to curse, to the spider in the bathroom that you automatically think to smash, every day there are opportunities to ​​substitute yourself for the other in your path and rethink how you think, what you say, and what action you take towards them. Stop, think, consider how you would want to be treated in that situation ... then take action.
 The following four virtues are are guides for measuring those thoughts, words and actions. Use these questions to check in with yourself as you engage with your daily activities.

Compassion

 Compassion is a state of being in which a person is motivated to be of assistance to others regardless of circumstance. Compassion arises most often as a response to the suffering of others, but is a virtue that can be cultivated to be a natural state of being. (More on Compassion)

Does your action arise from the wish
​to be of service and to help?

Loving-Kindness

Loving-kindness is an outpouring of gentleness, tenderness and understanding which arises from the forethought of the needs of those outside oneself. It is selfless, and an expression that recognizes the needs of another. It holds out no expectation for anything in return. (More on Loving-Kindness)

Do your words express gentleness, 
​sweetness and caring?

Sympathetic Joy

Sympathy, though most typically linked with sorrow, simply means the harmony of feeling that naturally exists between people of like tastes, opinion, or views.  Sympathetic joy, then, is
the shared feeling of happiness for someone else’s good fortune or success. It is a genuine, heartfelt delight that arises as a result of another person’s achievement or triumph, without  envy or desire to have it for oneself. 

Is your thought solely filled with happiness for another’s success without wanting
​it for yourself?

Equanimity

 Equanimity is a state of being in which the mind and emotions are calm, stable and objective, even when under duress. It is an attitude of openness and acceptance without any wish for anything to be different than it is, and without clinging to pleasurable experiences or having aversion to unpleasant ones. Equanimity arises out of the understanding of the interconnectedness of everything, and the transient nature 
of all things. (More on Equanimity)

Are your thoughts, words and actions
​arising from a state of ​calmness and objectivity?