The Whole in the Heart

There are many meditations in which one focuses on the physical heart and energetic heart. Meditations such as opening it, feeling into it, resting in it, breathing the woes of the world into it. I used to guard my heart in so many ways. The idea of breathing in others' pain and suffering did not appeal. Later I came to realize that I did not have to take on these pains personally, I was more of an open hole in the wall between an apparent reality "out there" and an infinite space of potential for healing. All I needed to do was breath stuff in–and through–and let that spacious presence do what it does, and breath out into the world whatever it sent. That visualization made it easier to feel a great willingness to breath in the woes of the world.

The heart has been described as an oasis, implying (perhaps) that it is a place of renewal, a refuge from the challenging desert-like aspects of life, an inner source from which a fountain of love emanates.  Sometimes my heart has felt this outpouring, a spring flowing from an ever renewing Source. Then there have been periods in my life where this has not at all been the case! Far from an oasis, the heart can sometimes can be a place full of pain. During one long stretch, for example, any attention on entering my heart was like entering an elaborately carved white marble temple–which appeared to be encrusted with black soot. For as long as this lasted there was heart-work do be done, entering this sooty place with boxes of tissues, washing the walls with tears as I encountered secret pains stashed away in ever nook and shrine, reviewing and releasing memory after memory, scene after scene, grief after grief. It took courage to being present in the feeling of what was long shut away. I noticed how "enshrined" some memories were. Will power was needed to make a conscious choice to stop worshiping various stories as a evidence of my being a victim. I learned to breath into my own painful feelings, and through this attention much was eventually released.

My heart is calm today as I write, but there have been spontaneous periods, for days and weeks, of much electric or energetic activity in the heart area, a sweet yet searing and pulling sensation, as if a physical opening were being stretched widener in my chest. A fiery sensation sometimes came on, as if a hole were being burned through and through, as if burning the door on the heart, creating an unclosable opening. 

Awakening is a gradual process for most of us. With increasing awareness of one's connection with the rest of life comes increasing awareness of subtle and not so subtle information. Being in your heart is like being on-line, uplinked to a broader network of intelligence where you can get information instantly. At some point you "get it" that if you are honest and clear in how you relate to people then you can send another kind of e-mail, "energetic mail", which others can collect in the in-box of their hearts. They may not read it right away, but the messages will be saved for whenever they are ready to receive them. A positive thought is never lost. You learn from experience that if you start gossiping or slamming someone, your receiving apparatus gets harder to register, and you start to experience the world as a more painful and frightening place because your own antennae are down, you are not accessing the heart's knowing, so you are not navigating with your full system intact. At some point you really get it that the other people and animals and plants and earth and clouds and rocks and stars are part of what you are, and that being in the heart is like being in one great big intimate room with everything. You get it that if you think or talk about someone in a positive or negative way, they are hearing it on a subtle dimension. You may come to realize this is because you are always talking to and about yourself.

We are more likely to be taught how to use our rational minds to navigate, and to maintain healthy emotional boundaries such as letting other people's pain be theirs. There is some wisdom in this, some maturity to be learned in not taking on someone's pain in such a way as to take over their learning or become emotionally distraught ourselves. It is like seeing someone fall through ice and knowing not to jump into the water with them where neither one can support the other's release.

But there is a more mature form of empathy, and this develops as we mature in sustaining awakeness. Seeing an image of suffering, hearing a story of suffering, we may find our hearts shot through with awareness of this pain. We feel it as our own, and know this to be true. The other person, or dog, or elephant is ourself. But in the awakened heart this passes through, it doesn't get stuck. Feelings are felt without clogging the system. In the next moment awareness might land on a beautiful scene and feel  tenderness. A wide open heart is not defended and doesn't cling. It remains open through all encounters. Nothing in the world can shut it down because it embraces everything. I'm not operating at full capacity yet, but I know that I have a choice to practice with each feeling that arises: to encounter it or go numb, to flinch away or cling to it or let it flow.