First, train in the preliminaries

It's hard to know where to start when we're seeking a mindful way of life but the world feels like it's lost its mind. The conundrum is age-old. The 11th century teacher Atisha, widely credited with bringing Buddhism from India to Tibet, had some thoughts, which were organized 100 years later by Chekawa Yeshe Dorje into the Lojong slogans. These 59 concise invitations help train the mind in its ability to realize an expansiveness that is already and always present, and to use that view as a guide for our attitudes and motivations in daily life. The first one is as fundamental as it gets: start with the preliminaries, which involve four basic thoughts:

1.This human birth is precious.
2.We will only be here for a short while.
3.What we do while we’re here matters.
4.A closed heart-mind will bring suffering.

Put another way: In the midst of life's garden of joy and pain, we can watch the seasons have their way with our blooms, and we can watch the seeds of our thoughts, words, and actions bear fruit. We have no idea how long this garden will flourish, whether and when it may lay fallow, and what shape the seeds we plant may take. All we can do is recognize the precious opportunities we have right in front of us to celebrate joys and to hold space for pain, whether that pain is in our own hearts, in the hearts of friends and family, or halfway across the world among human hearts enduring devastating violence.

In her book Start Where You Are, Pema Chödrön writes, "You can feel like the world's most hopeless basket case, but that feeling is your wealth," just as much as the "delightful things" are our wealth. We hope you are able to tap into the deep well of compassionate open-heartedness and find there the richness of shared humanity. And we send up prayers for peace to all who are suffering in this precarious time.

With love,
Annie Moyer