"When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that
it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and
limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is
there, as well as how much space.”
―
Pema Chödrön
“Real fearlessness is the product of tenderness. It comes from letting
the world tickle your heart, your raw and beautiful heart. You are
willing to open up, without resistance or shyness, and face the world.
You are willing to share your heart with others.”
―
Chögyam Trungpa
In some people's eyes, I'm definitely "a bit touched in the head."
These
days, I spend much of my time meditating, studying spiritual texts, and
comparing notes with with as many
folks as I can about matters of spirit, heart, and mind.
I even let slip in
some settings that I've directly experienced the Presence of God! This,
of course, can get me in trouble -- even (or maybe especially) in some
of the Buddhist circles I travel in where Emptiness or Shunyata are bandied about.
Yet,
like Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley and the many others who subscribe to the
Perennial Philosophy, I've come to see that there is a mystical
experience of Reality that underlies all
the world's religions. The direct experience of Oneness is the Real Deal.
The rest is just window dressing. (Apparently, if this Non-dual Experience is available to a bozo like me, it's available to anyone. LOL)
Over the years I've learned to be a a bit more discrete about yakking about these experiences, though.
I try not to mention these moments of Being There -- or, more correctly, just Being -- where
it is likely to lead to an embarrassed silence, furtive glances toward
the nearest exit -- or, possibly, somebody dialing 911! And, although I say
that lightly, in all seriousness this has been an unfortunate reality
for some folks in a society that doesn't
understand such things. I was usually able to travel under the radar. I was lucky. Even when I was homeless on the streets, I was able to stay out of jail or the psych ward.
Live and Learn
Looking back, I guess
I've always been a bit touched.
As a child, at times I sensed clearly there
was a profound beauty and magic in the world, a mysterious dimension to
our being that touched our hearts more than our heads. It was surprising and confusing to me that most folks didn't
seem to notice. In elementary school, I could see clearly that
the selfishness and cruelty I saw in the schoolyard created a living
hell for all concerned. Kindness and compassion
created its opposite. I couldn't understand why everyone just didn't
choose kindness and compassion. It seemed pretty obvious to me that all we had to do
was get our act together. This was the Promised Land. We could choose to create heaven on earth.
Needless to say, this is not the prevailing worldview. I was often dismissed as a dreamer or an
idealist, sometimes with obvious scorn by those who considered
themselves to be"realists." Long before I had heard of the Bodhisattva Vows, I was stumbling ahead trying to be kind, to be helpful, to serve all sentient beings. It just seemed to make sense to be me. Then,
like many of the folks who came of age in the cultural revolution of
the 60's and 70's, those childhood perceptions were reinforced again and
again -- with and without the assistance of various ingested
substances. It was just like Jesus, Buddha -- and the Beatles --
proclaimed. All we need is Love. That was the bottom line of the Real
Deal.
Yet, in the day to day
reality of my life, I discovered that actually being a loving
person wasn't all that easy.
Blinded by the subconscious scars of a traumatic childhood and a deeply wounded ego, immersed
in the energies of a neurotic society, I continued to roller-coaster
through relationships and jobs. I made a lot of mistakes. Much of the
time I could be a real jerk, failing
miserably to help others, or even free myself from the suffering caused
my the habitual mind states of a clueless, materialistic, society.
Even
after
experiencing the One Love directly, I still didn't have
much of a clue about the sheath of armoring around my heart that
operated to distance me from others -- and, perhaps more crucially, from
myself. Even with a couple of decades of a regular meditation
practice, including a significant time doing intensive meditation
retreats with major teachers, layers and layers of subconscious patterns still dictated much of my life. I could quickly disconnect from my aspiration to be a kind and loving person and get swept away in confusion. I
could get to the mountaintop again and again, but I couldn't sustain
the clear vision needed to navigate my own life skillfully.
Then, about 15 years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Pema Chodron's Start Where You Are. I opened the book to epigraph: "This book is about awakening the heart."
Zap!
Although, I had experienced a number of profound "heart openings" over the years, somewhere along the way I had thought that enlightenment was all about a state of Mind. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind had been one of my gateways to the Practice and I'd sat shikantaza
for a couple of decades. Now, Ani Pema's presentation of the Lojong
Trainings and Tonglen meditation, changed everything. I realized that I
had now had the tools to begin working with the realities of my life in
a more skillful manner. I saw the possibility that with commitment,
time, effort, patience -- and grace -- I could really serve.