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Today's
Meditation:
Imagine
this: there is a great need to be filled, so
everyone in the country is asked to contribute one dime to
the cause. One by one, all 300 million people in the
United States line up to toss a dime into the pile, and
everyone contributes within a few days. Can you
imagine the size of that pile? Just from the
seemingly insignificant contribution of ten cents each,
the people of this country would raise $30 million.
If
this ever were to happen, we'd have a huge pile of dimes
to serve as visual evidence of people's generosity.
And their generosity certainly wasn't excessive--after
all, giving a dime certainly didn't put anyone out.
Now
think of our contributions to the peace and love and
kindness of the world. Imagine these qualities as
being physical, perhaps in the form of a beautiful green
cloud in the sky. This cloud grows the tiniest of
bits every time we give something of ourselves to someone
else, every time we lift someone else up with
encouragement or a word of thanks. The cloud
diminishes each time we act in selfishness and hurt
someone else.
If
we had the visual confirmation of our actions, wouldn't it
be much easier to make kindness and love the most
important part of our lives? Wouldn't we be sure to
treat others very well if we actually saw results of our
own actions? We may not have a cloud that grows and
shrinks depending on our actions, but we do have a spirit,
and we do know how that spirit feels. It can be
invigorated or it can be down in the dumps without any
real energy, and much of its feelings have to do with our
actions. Imagine it as a cloud that others can see,
that reflects what we give to the world. Wouldn't
you want it to grow and be beautiful as a reflection of
the way that you treat the people in this world?
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