What is the core intent of what we are exploring together? It is to make friends with our experience so that all of our reactions and contractions can move through the vast spaciousness that we truly are. This leaves us open and available to life. It gives us a deep sense of trusting ourselves and trusting our lives. And it allows us to live from our hearts.
The first 3 questions are all about creating this kind of friendliness with our experience. We have been working with the third question, “For this moment can I touch this with compassion?” One of the most powerful things about this question is that you can begin to see that for most of us, most of the time we are not able to meet ourselves in our own hearts. Instead we live in some level of the judging quality of mind. In order to change our relationship with this aspect of ourselves we have named it the protector. When the judger/protector calms down, even a little bit, we can begin the journey back to our own hearts. Here is the quote from Carl Jung that speaks about how deeply we long for this kind of connection with ourselves.
That I feed the hungry, forgive an insult, and love my enemy…these are great virtues. But what if I should discover that the poorest of the beggars and the most impudent of offenders are all within me, and that I stand in need of the alms of my own kindness; that I myself am the enemy who must be loved? What then? –Carl Jung