You know that all beings that are born will die. All beings wish for happiness and wish to avoid suffering. Can you live viewing all beings as friends who share birth, old age, sickness, and death? Recite and contemplate this one sentence: “All beings are my friends who share birth, aging, sickness, and death.” With every person or animal that you see, with each sound you hear, each sensation you feel, each taste you experience, quietly consider all the beings involved and reflect: “You are my friend who shares birth, old age, sickness, and death.” With each contact—be they bugs, neighbors, children, birds, be it the sound of people passing on the road, the smell of cooked meat, the awareness of passengers in airplanes overhead, memories of people, portraits in the newspaper—contemplate that one sentence: “You are my friend who shares birth, old age, sickness, and death.”
—from Wisdom Wide and Deep, page 182