I was looking at the sky, just watching. I don't know how to say it, but I felt everything was perfect and connected--it's like there was no room even to think. It felt like my chest could explode and be the sun and the clouds.
In a talk about compassion, a former teacher of mine once said that practice prepares the mind, but suffering prepares the heart. Perhaps the final step in the healing of all wounds is the discovery of the capacity for compassion, an intuitive knowing that no one is singled out in their suffering, that all living beings are vulnerable to loss, attachment, and limitation. It is only in the presence of compassion that we can show our wounds without diminishing our wholeness. For those who have compassion, woundedness is not a place of judgment but a place of genuine meeting.