I went for a ride in Carver Park last week and noticed a lot of woolly bear caterpillars on the path. As usual, I tried to steer around them.
Lately, compassion, or karuna in yoga, has been on my mind and a theme in my teaching. The theme this month at Soul Matters is “Cultivating Compassion,” and I gave a talk about it yesterday. So maybe it makes sense that something shifted in me last week on my bike.
Partway into the ride I imagined one of those little fuzzy creatures as my kid.
Now, I don’t know that I believe in what most people call reincarnation. But I do believe we all come from the same stardust. Everything that exists now once lived in some other form. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed or rearranged. The planet is billions of years old. If all that’s true, then we share a lot more with woolly bears than we like to admit.
Still, belief didn’t matter much to me in that moment. In yoga, what counts is direct experience, not what you think about it.
When I pictured that caterpillar as my child—tiny, lost, afraid, trying to cross a dark trail full of bikes and shoes—my heart opened. (Oof, thinking about it now hits me again.) That thought, true or not, changed how I rode that day. I slowed down a little bit. I paid closer attention. I practiced ahimsa, non-harming, not as a theory but in my actions.
The Karaniya Metta Sutta says:
Even as a mother protects with her life
her child, her only child,
so with a boundless heart
should one cherish all living beings.
Loving all living beings like my only child seems like a high bar. Even that person who pees on the toilet seat? And those people trying to force kids into conversion therapy? Love the fascist dictator like my only child? Really?
It almost seems like it would be easier to be a Jain monk who sweeps the ground before walking to avoid stepping on insects. That, too, seems pretty intense, but perhaps we can view it as devotion in motion. It’s a reminder that ahimsa is care for the smallest things, not grand gestures.
We live in a time when cruelty, greed, and deceit seem to be rising. Hate gets rewarded. Lying wins power. Militarization passes for strength. Every one of those trends pulls against the heart of yoga. Practicing yoga means moving the other way, toward kindness, truth, and restraint (brahmacharya).
I can’t change the whole system, but I can start in my own heart. I can pause before squishing a spider or judging a stranger. I can notice when my thoughts lean toward impatience or blame. I can practice compassion right where I stand, or pedal, or scroll.
Next time you walk down a grocery aisle and someone blocks the way, try a little experiment. Imagine that person as your child, your sibling, or your grandparent. See how your heart responds.
That small shift might not change the world, but it could change how you move through it.
That’s where karuna begins.
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