The Gift of Sadness

AWAKEN THE GENUINE HEART OF SADNESS When you awaken your heart, to your surprise, you find that it is empty. If you search for awakened heart, if you put your hand through your rib cage and feel for your heart, there is nothing there—except for tenderness. You feel sore and soft, and if you open your eyes to the world, you feel tremendous sadness. It is not the sadness of feeling sorry for yourself or feeling deprived. It is a natural situation of fullness. The genuine heart of sadness comes from this feeling that your nonexistent heart is full. Your experience is so raw, tender, and personal that even if a tiny mosquito lands on you, you feel its touch. —Chögyam Trungpa, from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior My, the heart is filled to overflowing with grief today, but it is strange because this is the first time in 67 years on this planet that this level of grief and sorrow were felt while at the same time the heart is filled with such hope and clarity.

Let me explain.

Three BIG, and I do mean BIG, shifts occurred because of the realizations of yesterday.

The first happened because of a PayPal dispute. No need to go into it but suffice it to say, I saw the level to which I still do not trust in the endless blessing, beneficence and benediction that life holds out to each and every one of us in every experience.

I clearly saw in my reaction and my behavior, remnants of a five year old child who still believed that the world could take things from her, things very real and tangible to her, that she could indeed suffer loss and that her safety depended upon her and it was her duty to fight for what was rightfully hers because if she didn't, the world would snatch it all away.

The second happened when the Trump supporters stormed the Capital Building. For hours I felt as if our very Democracy was at stake.

I was angry.

I felt incensed.

I wanted to invoke the twenty-fifth amendment myself and see Donald Trump and his supporters all locked up.

I pondered how anyone could be so blatantly ignorant and violent.

And then I saw it.

Just like me.

How was I any different than those individuals creating so much havoc at the Capitol Building when I looked carefully at myself fighting with PayPal?

Were not each of those people really quite brave to fight so passionately for what they absolutely believed was right and true? Were they not protecting what they thought was theirs as was I?

Even though it is all born of ignorance, there seems a certain bravery that touches this heart, even in the midst of some of our worst moments of acting out.

There is an innocence to our ignorance.

I have wept my heart out for the last 36 hours.

And this led to a third insight which occurred after a phone conversation with someone who is very near and dear to my heart and has been for a quarter of a century.

She also happens to be black.

She told me that there was only one area of her life where she felt that we could truly meet one another in perfect agreement and harmony with one another.

It was shattering. How is that a friendship? She has been merely tolerating me while I believed we were inseparably close. You see, I had held a much more elevated opinion of myself and our relationship which was obviously neither accurate or true.

And although I have never thought of myself as a prejudiced person, I have realized through our various conversations during 2020 until now that I have turned a blind eye to all the prejudice in this world, having a sort of Pollyanna view of things, thinking human beings are a whole lot better than they actually are.

Through her eyes I have seen all the lies upon which this country of ours was founded.

All men are created equal. Not all human beings, But all white men.

So I guess to hell with anyone of color, anyone who is female, anyone who believes differently, loves differently, looks differently or happens to be a child.

We stole this country from the Native peoples who were here before us.

And while the ideal of Democracy is noble, we have not nearly lived up to the nobility we professed represented our most cherished and sacred values by any stretch of the imagination.

What to do?

Our world, and this country in particular, has become so polarized by opinion.

The left and right are now so truncated that it seems there is no middle ground upon which we can meet.

But then I thought of my dear Baba and how he used to tell me that the heart is very important because it was the heart of the middle way, for there are three chakras below the heart which represent man's animal nature and there are three chakras above which represent humanity's divine nature.

May I have such a huge heart that I can stand in the middle of all points of view and every perspective, without opinion, positionality or belief in anything other than peace...anything other than love...and may the light which emanates from this being be so bright that even without saying a single word, we are all reminded of the only things that matter and can bring us back into harmony and union within ourselves, with one another and our world.

Amen