So, what does caring look like in the presence of adversity? I think we can safely say that we all care, but are we caring about the right things? These words belong to Hafiz, a poet of ancient times: “My dear, is it true that sometimes your mind is like a battering ram, running all over town, shouting in and out about 10,000 things that don’t matter?”
I think we all have moments in our lives that awaken us to what is most important. I have one: When my son Valentino was about a month old, I had to take him to the hospital. It was there that we learned he needed emergency surgery. I wasn’t even going to that hospital with him – it was every parent who ever took their sick child or sick child. It’s easy to forget in these moments that what we’re doing is learning something about the human condition.
So… what does it mean to live with an “unprotected heart”? How do we train the heart to relax so that we can learn about this tendency to be human? And how can we make it less about our individual pain, but instead connect with pain, and all beings who share this condition with me? Because that’s when we’re able to let the most caring part of us come forward.
It’s not easy, though. We have to watch where we get stuck and bring compassion to that place, to that experience. To truly love means to surrender a part of ourselves. The act of compassion, then, is waking up to all the barriers we put between ourselves and love.
It is important to see where we are stuck or blocked because there is no possibility of freedom if we cannot first recognize where we are stuck. And if we can’t distinguish between unskilled responses and skilled ones, we’re bound to stay in our unconscious patterns. Tara Brach puts it this way, “Every time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, you awaken to the truth and that can deepen. There’s less self-identity in the story and more ability to rest in that awareness of what’s happening. Towards freedom.”
As we open to difficult things, we will also open to understanding. Last week we talked about the ability to stay with the feelings in the body and not the mind’s story of what happened or is happening. We can usually tolerate feelings. It is the stories that overwhelm us. This is the story that we always feel this way. That we have always felt that way. That whatever is happening is happening.
Through this practice we can learn how to convey awareness in a particular way—especially regarding the heart’s connection to pain. We may not be able to save the world, but we must find a way to respond to preserve our experience of the world. Knowing in our hearts that we are not separate from this world is an important first step. Because, as we allow ourselves to be touched, we encounter the courage of an unguarded heart. And our desire to touch, to move, to move around in this realm can bring a kind of beauty to the difficult things of life.
A Meditation for Nurturing the Vulnerable Heart
Watch the video:
Listen to the audio:
Pausing after each paragraph, read and follow the guided meditation script below. Or listen to the practice audio.
1. Find a position that is comfortable, drawing your awareness inward.. Let go of any urges you may feel in the moment. Just let them fall.
2. Check your heart and your stomach. As you do, let’s aim to meet whatever arises with as much gentleness and acceptance as possible.
3. Think of someone you know.. Let’s make it someone we see regularly, maybe at the grocery store or in our neighborhood. What we’re doing is expanding our circle of care to people we feel neutral about (so there’s no big feeling either way). Picture them in your mind, knowing that they too have their own problems. They also know the pain, the struggle.
4. Now let’s offer them the same care that we did for ourselves last week.. I care about your problems. May you be treated with compassion. May your heart rest in peace.
5. Think of all the different people you cross paths with regularly.. Offer them the same phrases we offered ourselves: I care about your problems. May you be treated with compassion. May your heart rest in peace.
6. As we close this practice, notice if there are any ways you are making decisions on your own. Are you telling yourself you’re not doing it well, or expecting something else to happen? No need for judgment here. All we have to do is set our intention and care for what arises.
Over the course of the next week, allow yourself to see where empathy naturally arises and where it might need a little help to flourish.
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