Contemplation: Ground and Sustenance

After reviewing the guidelines for practice, take the following as your object of contemplation:

Like the earth and the pervading elements,
Enduring as the sky itself endures,
For boundless multitudes of living beings,
May I be their ground and sustenance.

Thus for everything that lives,
As far as are the limits of the sky,
May I provide their livelihood and nourishment
Until they pass beyond the bonds of suffering.

Santideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva, p. 51-52