You and everyone around you is suffering. If you aren't aware of that fact yet, open a newspaper, turn on CNN or take an open-eyed walk outside your own front door. Or just look at yourself in the mirror: what's wrong today? Definitely something. Suffering is the nature of samsara. And if things seem fine today, they won't tomorrow.

If it's true that this suffering world you perceive is the result of how you have thought, spoken and behaved in the past, then everything around you and everything perception you have is your responsibility. Take responsibility for your projected world the same way you take responsibility for anything else that belongs to you: car payments, feeding your children, brushing your teeth.

The fact that it is YOUR projection, and no one else's, is the very reason why you CAN change it. How? Figure out what you don't like about your world and the people in it and then resolve to STOP being those things yourself. Moreover, START being the qualities you DO like. Doing this will be VERY hard. None of us likes to think that the hurtful things people do to us happen because we did them to another first, even if we did it only in our minds. Much easier to blame others, to be a victim, than to begin the hard work of actually CHANGING who we are. Whenever you hear yourself saying "He is so....", "The world is so...", "The President is so...", "My mother is so...", "My boss is so...", "New Yorkers are so...", "My teacher is so...", stop and think, "No, I AM LIKE THAT." Whether it's a good quality you are seeing or a bad one.

Practice altruism a few times day. Don't be a yogi in word only. Buy someone a fruit shake... surprise a lonely colleague with a real hug (not the kind where you hold the lower half of your body two feet away) and don't let go right away... give someone money who needs it, instead of loaning it..listen carefully to a friend in pain without interrupting once. They are you: our corrupted projections prevent us from seeing this.

Use your understanding of karma and emptiness to perfect your projections. Change who you are and watch your projection follow suit.

Take away the pain in of others and to give them what they need. Give world what it needs to save itself from itself and be saved in turn.

Love,
Kelly

PS. Please forward this email to anyone who you think might benefit...:)