May All Beings Be Free From Suffering by Tracy Cochran
Eight years ago this morning, I was riding a Metro North train down to Manhattan when a conductor ran through the train with the terrible and surreal news that the World Trade Center towers had collapsed and that the Pentagon had been hit.
I knew about the two planes going in when I boarded the train but in a distant echo of the way so many other New Yorkers acted that day, my instinct was to head towards the trouble. When I heard the terrible news, I spontaneously began to say a Buddhist metta prayer for all the people I pictured falling to their deaths: May you be free from suffering… May you be at ease. I wasn't in denial. It was one of those rare moments in life where the heart steps in and takes over for the head and all the distracting thoughts, fears, and sense of separation between myself and others came down. It was as if my heart was with them, as if they were the same as I was.
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