Keeping the Heart Open in These Times
Things are getting pretty intense out there. Each day the news is more disorienting and harder to take in. Friends often mention the stress they feel all around them. These days, when someone asks me "How are you?” I usually answer that it depends on what lens I'm looking through. Personally, my life is quite blessed at the moment. Knowing things will change, I feel incredibly fortunate to have good health, a wonderful family, enjoy my work, share an inspiring circle of friends and be part of a conscious community.
When I widen the lens and take in what is happening in the world, it becomes heartbreaking to see all the cruelty and harm that people less privileged are going through. The challenge is to not turn away and to keep the heart open in the midst of so much anger, hatred and suffering. I’d like to share some thoughts on skillful ways that may support you going through these times.
Honoring Our Pain
In his First Noble Truth, the Buddha states that there is dukkha in life. The Pali word dukkha can be defined in various ways: suffering, unreliability, unsatisfactoriness or stress. As one friend puts it “Life is a bumpy ride.”
As a meditation teacher, my job is to be present for people’s suffering. A central part of the work is being with others in their most vulnerable moments. This is particularly true in intensive silent retreats. That journey involves being willing to dive deep inside and open to the whole package, meeting all of the painful parts that we usually distract ourselves from seeing.
Early in my teaching I learned the importance of allowing people to go through their experience. A friend came on her first retreat and I really wanted her to have a positive experience. However, she was going through something very different, having a miserable time encountering all the demons inside. It was clear she couldn’t just sit there and be with it all so I suggested going for a nourishing walk and relaxing a bit.
While she was gone, I realized that I too was having a hard time, wishing and she would feel better. At some point I realized she was experiencing the First Noble Truth. I understood that learning to skillfully be with suffering, rather than getting rid of it, was the most profound way for her to transform her pain into compassion. It was a tremendous gift in my teaching. It’s not my job to take away someone’s suffering. I can support them by just holding space for their pain, letting them learn to be with it and hold it for themselves.
The first step is learning to skillfully allow for the pain and sorrow we may feel. In her poem “Unconditional” Jennifer Welwood writes,
Each condition I flee from pursues me.
Each condition I welcome transforms me
And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel-like essence.
Sometimes we aren’t able to just be with our pain. Instead, we need to “titrate our dukkha” so we don’t become overwhelmed. Finding our “window of tolerance” means knowing our limits as to how much we are able to take in while maintaining a balanced mind. How much news is right for me? Do I need to do something nourishing like gardening, going for a walk in nature, enjoy the company of a friend? Reflect on what helps you get some balance when you’re going through a hard time.
Accepting Things as They Are
The next step in working with suffering, whether it’s inside or around us, is to accept the fact that although life can be painful, is to accept the fact that suffering is part of life. Those with a meditation practice are fortunate to have been exposed to teachings that help us wisely navigate through life.
We learn that we have a choice as to how we relate to our experience. If we can’t change the situation, wishing things were different than they are is a certain prescription for increased suffering. What we resist persists. This is the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth: the cause of most of our suffering is attachment to things being different than the way they are. The truth of impermanence helps us to embrace reality instead of fighting it. Sooner or later things change. What’s the point of railing against reality when that’s just the way it is?
For me, one of the most important teachings about navigating life came when I first read Be Here Now by Ram Dass many years ago. He talks about Shiva’s Dance of Life. Shiva in Hindu teachings is the God of Transformation. Sometimes referred to as the Destroyer, he is the embodiment of impermanence, showing us that life is always changing. How we respond to that fact determines if we resist change or learn to dance with it.
Singing and Dancing and Insurance and Savings Accounts and Job and Responsibility
SHIVA”S DANCE OF LIFE
Do you do it from UUNNNKKK
Or do you do it from AAAAHHHH?
Do you surf through it all
Or do you carry it around like a load?
This teaching was a turning point in understanding for me. I saw I had a choice and I was determined, as much as possible, to live my life from AAAAHHHH. Yes, I still get humbled and I’m not always surfing through it all. But knowing where happiness and peace can be found makes all the difference. I just have to keep facing in the right direction and learn from my mistakes along the way.
Learning to Keep Our Hearts Open
So, first we honor our pain, holding it with kindness. Then, understanding that everything changes allows us to keep learning from the difficulties we encounter. We realize with deepening clarity that the best way to do Shiva’s dance of life—is to do it with an open heart. A potent support for that is to keep looking for the good. Yes, there is suffering in life. But many of us have a “negative confirmation bias.” We find what we look for. If we are on the lookout for how life will disappointment us, we will easily notice that. If, however, we look for the blessings in life that will become our orientation. Albert Einstein said that perhaps the most important question a human being can ask is “Is the Universe friendly or not?”
This loving heart is who we really are. Buddhists call it our Buddha Nature or True Nature. Christians call it the Kingdom of Heaven within us. In Judaism, Shekhinah refers to God's immanent or indwelling presence. In Islam, the heart (qalb) is seen as a mirror that can reflect God's divine light.
Lewis Thomas, author of Lives of a Cell, puts it this way: “I maintain that we are born and grow up with a fondness for each other, and that we have genes for that. We can be talked out of that fondness, for the genetic message is like a distant music, and some of us are hard-of-hearing. Societies are noisy affairs, drowning out the sound of ourselves and our connection. Hard-of-hearing, we go to war. Stone deaf, we make thermonuclear missiles. Nonetheless, the music is there, waiting for more listeners.”
My Tibetan friend and teaching colleague, Anam Thubten, speaks of the Tibetan practice of looking at life with Sacred Perception. We see everything as sacred and train ourselves to embrace it all. For learning to keep our hearts open amidst both joy and sorrow Buddhism offer four heart practices, the Brahma Viharas or Divine Abodes. Metta or loving kindness, is the cultivation of a kind heart, consciously generating good will towards ourselves and others. We learn to change our perception and relationship to ourselves and everyone around us.
When that loving heart encounters suffering it becomes karuna or compassion. When metta meets happiness, it transforms into the uplifting quality of mudita, sympathetic or appreciative joy. And to hold the other three heart qualities without getting lost in overwhelm or grasping we develop upekkha or equanimity, a balance of mind in all circumstances.
I believe that there is no better way to go through life in these intense times than to deepen our capacity to keep our hearts open and share our love well. As Martin Luther King Jr. so wisely put it, “I’m sticking with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” Deepening these four heart qualities affects everyone around us, awakening the love and goodness in others as well. This is the most subversive and effective response to all the confusion and negativity we are dealing with at this time. Let’s remind each other of that goodness for the benefit of all beings, human and non-human, living on this beautiful home that we share.