Life is what you make it.
Well, for most of us. That's one thing I've come to realize myself. You choose the people around you. You choose what hobbies or sports you practice. You choose the life you live now. You choose where you live, what kind of work you do, what you do in your free time. And so on. Only this choice is not self-evident. At least not in the time we live in now. And then I'm not talking about our freedoms that are being curtailed bit by bit, but about all those poor countries. About all those child victims. About all the people who live in a war zone or in a refugee camp. About all the children who are abused from birth. They don't have the choices that we have. They have to make do with what they get. Sometimes that's just a piece of bread and a sip of water a day. If they even have that. And in the case of abuse, they wake up in a nightmare.
Metta Meditation
And I didn't plan on writing about this at all, but apparently it's the intention, because my thoughts and feelings go there. And honestly... There's a very big chance that I don't even know how bad it all is there. How terrible it must be to have to survive every day. How terrible it must be to be abused as a child. Where we are allowed to, they have to and they have no choice. So what I want to ask you and what I am going to do myself now is send a lot of love to all the people who don't have a free life at the moment. And I want to ask you to also focus a few minutes of your time on this. You can do that by directing your loving attention to these people and through Metta meditation. At Terra Nova we also practice more Metta meditations recently. And actually that is a very beautiful way of meditating. During the Vipassana week here we also ended the day with that.
So close your eyes now. Open your heart. And send your love and compassion to all people whose freedom is limited or restricted. It can also help to place your hands on your heart to connect more with your feeling. And if you want to use words with it, you can use these words that I learned from Dingeman Boot during the Vipassana week.
May all people be healthy
May all people be happy
That all people may live in freedom
May all people live in love