A Good Cry

“Crying is one of the highest devotional songs. One who knows crying, knows spiritual practice. If you can cry with a pure heart, nothing else compares to such a prayer.  Crying includes all the principles of Yoga.”

― Swami Kripalvanandji

“In the Lakota/Sioux tradition, a person who is grieving is considered 

most Wakan, most holy."

― Tara Brach,  

True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart 

Emmet Kelly 1898-1979

Some time ago,  I came across the above quote by Swami Kripalvanandji while preparing for a yoga class that I was going to teach later that day.  I immediately emailed it to a dear friend who was having a rough time.

She replied that it helped -- a lot.  After reading it, she had headed out to her garden to have a good cry.  It was exactly what she needed.

Growing up in today's society, most of us have learned to avoid crying like the plague.  Widely seeen as a sign of unacceptable weakness and frailty, we are conditioned to keep a stiff upper lip, to steel ourselves against this natural expression of heartfelt feeling.  

 

Although this conditioning is considered to be a "male," thing, most of the women I know often fight back their tears.  In our society, these patterns of resistance to a natural human expression are quite pervasive. 

That being said, I actually hesitated for a moment to plunge ahead here.  After all, you don't see glitzy promotional commercials proclaiming: Mindfulness Practice: Guaranteed to make you cry! Maybe I'd better "lighten up" a bit?  I might get sued by the professionals promising peace and joy.  After all, isn't Buddha's Third Noble Truth the freakin' Cessation of Suffering?

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Yes, it is.  The cessation of suffering is a big deal.

Yet, it has become clear to me (and others*): There is a profound difference between pain and suffering.  

The natural experience and expression of emotional pain, like the natural experience and expression of joy, emerges from our True Nature.  Each can bring us to tears as hearts and minds are touched deeply by Reality of Life as it is.  

Emotional pain doesn't cause suffering.  It is our conditioned resistance to the pain that causes suffering.  Adrift in the pervasive conditioning of today's society, our hearts become closed, armored by layers of fear and unexpressed grief.  With Practice, this changes.  With Practice, we can open to the healing energy of the One Love that exists within and beyond our Heart of Hearts.

A Good Cry

There is such a thing as a Good Cry.  I think that is what Yogi Jesus was teaching when he proclaimed "Blessed be those who mourn, for they will be comforted." The release offered through our tears is a natural healing process. 

Pain, sorrow, and grief will naturally emerge as we open to the infinite permutations of Life and Death that are inherent in the human condition.  Over the years I've seen clearly that the emotions of fear and anger become conditioned shields against those deeper feelings.  Our hearts become armored, and these calcified emotions tend to generate story lines full of blame and judgment. These patterns serve to keep us in our heads and out of our hearts.  Letting go of those thoughts and opening to the array of feelings that then emerge, a skill developed with Practice, the process deepens. 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu at Truth and Reconciliation Hearing 1996

Ultimately,  our hearts and our bodies will respond authentically to the immediacy of the moment -- and honest tears will flow to melt away the resistances to our fundamental Connection to ourselves, to one another, and to the One Love.  

Opening to the tears, accepting and embracing Life As It Is, we access the infinite pool of open, clear, peaceful Awareness that permeates all possible universes.  

In opening to the Darkness, we open to the Light!  How cool is that?  It just takes Practice.

For crying out loud!

 * The tears I shed during the course of a five-day retreat led by the late Stephen Levine and his wife Ondrea were among the most healing moments of my life.  Levine's talent at crafting guided meditations capable of "opening the heart" was unparalleled.  With Levine's passing, the world lost a Master of Manifesting"A Good Cry".   Your MMM Courtesy Wake Up Call: Good Grief.

Originally Posted, May 15, 2015.  Revised.