Sad But True

This world - 
absolutely pure
As is. 
Behind the fear,

Vulnerability. 
Behind that,
Sadness, 
then compassion
And behind that the vast sky.

 --Rick Fields

 “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

Sometimes, insight and healing emerge slowly during the course of our lives. 

Like spring unfolding across the palette of April and May, our Practice deepens.  Green shoots appear.  Buds open.  What was tan, stark, and frigid, gradually brightens, softens, and warms. 

Then, at a certain point, we notice.  It's different now than it was before.  Nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. 

At other times, Zap! Insight and Healing emerge like a bolt of lightning.

Sometimes, this Peak Experience bursts forth with a torrential downpour of tears. Sometimes not. Yet, in that moment, we experience a Grand Gestalt.  There is Crystalline Clarity.  We really get It!  Or perhaps -- more accurately-- It gets us! 

In a flash, everything has changed, but nothing has changed.  Yet, it is different now than it was before.

The Genuine Heart of Sadness

Years ago, I had the good fortunate to stop by Himalayan Views, a nearby spiritual bookstore and gift store, to hear a woman describe one of those moments.  She was sitting in the back reading area of the store, and as is often the case, I made the effort to smile and say hello.  (A childhood rebel, I never agreed with "don't talk to strangers.")  Soon, I found myself chatting with her about the book she was reading.  Soon, she and I were comparing notes on our lives and spiritual practice.  

Her eyes were clear and kind.  Her voice was gentle, yet powerful, as she shared her story.  

She was in her mid-thirties at the time of her Awakening.   Suffering from what had been diagnosed as "clinical depression," medicated since early adolescence, she had come across a book of Pema Chodron's teachings.  Page by page, she was drawn  into an deepening awareness of a truth she felt she had always known.  It was a truth she had never had from the people around her.

 

Then, when she read of what Pema's teacher, Chogyam Trungpa had called "the genuine heart of sadness," in a flash, Reality asserted itself.

Zap!

At that very moment, She knew. 
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Encountering Life As It Is

In a burst of tears -- and then with rainbows glistening through those tears -- the whole world shifted.  She saw clearly that her experience of a deep, sometimes debilitating, sadness about the human condition wasn't a sickness. It was her Connection to Bodhichitta, the soft and tender core of the Heart of Awareness.  
 
Like most of us, she had been quite sensitive to the spiritual dimension of life as a child.  In her openness to this mysterious Reality, she had felt a deep connection to the reality of  human life in all its manifestations.  The birds and bees sang and hummed to her.  The clouds and blue sky danced with her.  She could sense unseen entities. 

 

Yet, as well as experiencing times of wordless wonder, she recognized the suffering that the Buddha and spiritual masters had perceived as inherent in the human condition. There were times she felt a deep sadness.

 

In some cultures, in some eras, this sensitivity would have been recognized as a Gift.  She would have received the acknowledgment, support, and guidance she needed to understand how to work with the energy of her sadness in a skillful way.  She may have been trained as a Priestess or a Healer. 

 

Instead, growing up in twentieth century suburban America, her experiences frightened those around her.  There were interpreted as "symptoms" of disease.  In a society steeped in scientific materialism, a capitalist economic system, and distorted forms of religion, she was told by her family, school social workers, and psychiatrists that she had a chemical imbalance, a broken brain.  Like so many people today, medication was presented as the answer.  

 

As so often happens, it didn't really help.  This approach served to foster an even deeper disconnection from herself and others.   Rather than receiving the support of a community that understood that we are Spiritual Beings,  she was told she was fundamentally broken.  She had suffered the stigma of "mental illness" throughout most of her life.

As this intelligent and sensitive woman read the teaching from Pema Chodron that day, the Connection was made.  In a heartbeat, this precious and gentle soul now understood that her sadness was not a personal failing.  It wasn't an illness.  It was her connection to the spiritual dimension of the human condition.

 

She now understood.  Remembering her childhood Catholicism, she recalled that Jesus had said Blessed be those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  She saw that her sensitivity her heart's sadness was a blessing, not a curse.  That day, she knew that in her Heart of Hearts that she glimpsed what Buddha and Jesus, and countless other saints, sages, and seers had seen.  In opening her heart to the sadness, she opened her heart to a joy and a gratitude that is not dependent on external conditions.  

 

She had touched the One Love. 

Now, she just needed to learn how to work with it.  

The Theory and the Practice

With the assistance of a supportive counselor, a regular meditation practice, and a supportive peer community that valued vulnerability and authenticity, this budding Bodhisattva slowly decreased, then completely discontinued, the use of the antidepressant medications she had been prescribed for over two decades.  By the time she was sharing her story that day, this courageous and inspiring woman had been successfully, at times quite joyfully, navigating her life for over three years -- completely drug free.

Please understand: My point here is not that medications are always the wrong approach.  As a child of the sixties, how could I ever claim that drugs are always a bad thing?  Stephen Gaskin and Ram Dass weren't the only ones who experienced significant awakenings under their influence. Many of us did.   In fact, today, some of the drugs we experimented with back then have now been shown to be quite useful in formal clinical trials.  With the proper support and proper life skills in place, there are times that medications may be helpful. 

Yet, each of us walks a unique path.  There is no "one size fits all" path to healing.

Over the years, I've had friends whose quality of life, at least for a time, has been improved through the use of prescription drugs.  It made there lives more manageable.  Yet, I've also had many friends, who were like the woman I met that day.  At a certain point, they understood that they were not fundamentally flawed.  They successfully navigated their way to a freedom from the drugs prescribed by mainstream medicine.

 

The drugs simply are what they are.  With or without them, we each have the capacity to heal into our True Nature.

Sad But True

 

At age 80, speaking from my own experience, an exploration of the genuine heart of sadness can be a powerful practice. "Don't be sad," is often a horrible message!  We are conditioned, consciously and subconsciously to suppress, repress, or deny a natural human emotion.  In a more enlightened society, those around us would provide the skills and support to express those feelings.  The energy would be released rather than stored up in our subconscious -- and in our body where it can do subterranean damage.

 

It doesn't have to be this way.

 

There is a great value in exploring what our society conditions us to avoid.  The so-called "negative" emotions are part of the human condition.  They are natural responses to life.   As human beings, we feel.  Hardening our hearts to prevent ourselves from feeling sadness disconnects us from ourselves -- and one another.  We need to feel, to grieve, to cry.  Always keeping "a stiff upper lip" disconnects us from our hearts ability to feel its way to Truth.  (It also makes it hard to talk freely -- and to laugh, right?)  

The Heart of Practice

In the world today, we desperately need people who have the courage to open their hearts and minds, to face reality as it is.  As the mystic saints, seers, and sages of the world's wisdom traditions have proclaimed throughout the ages, a kind and compassionate heart is the Key to the Kingdom.  Although we may first have to face and embrace the fear that shrouds true vulnerability, deep within and beyond our own personal sadness is the shared existential sadness that connects us to one another and to the One Love that pervades the universe.     

The heart practices of meditation and mindful awareness, with their many forms and flavors, offer us the opportunity to approach our lives with greater kindness, compassion, calm, and clarity.  Although it takes commitment, effort and patience, each of us can learn to embrace, with understanding and skill, that which we've been conditioned to avoid.  

With Practice, our own soft and tender heart becomes the gateway to fundamental fearlessness, boundless compassion -- and a peace that "passes all understanding."  

After exploring this path and comparing experiences with countless people over the past 60 hears or so, I have come to believe that we each have the onboard equipment to make this journey.  As we come into our heart of hearts, our True Nature reveals itself.  Rather than stagger along with our minds clouded and our hearts hardened by our conditioning,  we can learn to soften, to open, to Love wholeheartedly. 

It just takes Practice.



Originally posted April 18, 2014. Revised and updated.