More on Love and Fear

If fear and anger are the root of non-loving, then courage and peacefulness are the root of love. It is a brave thing to choose love, gentleness, and compassion. The Buddhist loving-kindness meditation aids in the heart-opening practice of choosing love. To practice it, you simply imagine someone you know, someone you don’t know, even someone you don’t like (which can be especially transformative). You imagine taking into your heart all of that person’s pain and suffering; you see it flowing from them to you and filling your heart space. But don’t stop there; really feel it. Then, you imagine sending from your heart solace, joy, and love, love, love. Feel that too. As you send loving energy from your heart to this person, you will feel your own heart expanding. It is big enough to contain the whole world’s suffering, and its love is powerful enough to heal deep wounds. I am convinced that this meditation, this prayer, affects not only the one meditating but also the one imagined. Your compassion and love reach that person. Your compassion and love are transformative. And since what we send into the world returns to us, we cannot help but be healed ourselves.

Love Over Fear

One of my dear friends has recently fully realized what it means to choose love over fear, to make decisions based on the heart rather than on the sense of fight or flight. I am so grateful to her for sharing her story with me, and I am grateful for her presence in my life. She has reminded me of what I, too, strive for. When people have commented that we must learn to love rather than fear, I understand fully what they mean; what I have not always understood is how to go about this process of loving ever more while letting go of more and more fear.

In my own studies, I often think of the chakra system and its inter-workings with emotional, physical, and spiritual health. Each of the seven major chakras has an emotional resonance; the root chakra, Muladhara, is the seat of security and rootedness. The heart chakra, Anahata, is the seat of love. Each chakra, too, has an opposing emotional resonance, so that when the chakra is closed or out of balance, the negative emotion will begin to emanate from that space. An imbalance in Muladhara results in fear. An imbalance in Anahata results in grief.

It is just as important to investigate one's relationship to the root and resonance of fear and grief as it is to cultivate a sense of groundedness and love. It is the sense of security that allows people to feel safe enough to love, and it is insecurity which causes people to react with anger and defensiveness, which so often leads to grief. Why? Because anger is destructive, and destruction leads to a death of some sort. Usually this is not a physical death, and often death is necessary for something else to be reborn, but too much of this will inevitably result in grief.

So how does one cultivate the ability to act out of love rather than fear, to make choices that reflect an open heart and a stable root? One choice at a time, is an easy but vague answer. More practically, we must continually ask ourselves what is motivating our decisions. We must investigate how we physically feel when we are making choices. Does my chest feel heavy and stony? Do I feel panicked and unable to think straight? If so, I'm likely reacting in fear and with a closed heart. Conversely, if my chest feels open, light and I feel calm and steady, then I am moving from a space of love and fearlessness.

Someone wrote that love is letting go of fear, and I can see so clearly how this is so. The daily challenge is the letting go. Acknowledging fear, yet acting through love is the task. We may believe that fight or flight is our best method of self-preservation, but in most circumstances that we face today, love is the true method of survival. Fight or flight, the stress response, wreaks havoc on the body and mind, and what we send into the world returns to us. So loving more and more is our challenge as well as our salvation.

Change, Survival, Community

This week, I have been teaching Octavia Butler's novel Parable of the Sower to my students. It's an engrossing and haunting story about the United States in a not so distant future. What is most frightening and illuminating about it is that the scene Butler paints could indeed occur, perhaps not in the details she describes but in the emotional and social portrait of people she paints. While the world may never see a drug like Pyro that causes people immense pleasure when they set fire to things, we may see a time when water is more expensive than gasoline and gasoline is too expensive to support motorized transportation. Similarly, many people already live in the walled communities Butler creates which keep her protagonist and others feeling safe from the chaos that exists beyond their walls.

That protagonist, Lauren, recognizes that her community is not as safe as they want to believe they are. She understands that they need to be more prepared in case their walls are breached; in fact, they need to be prepared to live without their walls if that becomes necessary. Lauren begins describing a worldview, a religion, that sees change as the most powerful, unavoidable reality in the world. Since she acknowledges that God is the most powerful, constant, and present force in the world, she begins to see change as God, God as change.

I'll not comment on the religion she begins to form or this idea on which it is based, I will say that the book has me reflecting on faith as a means for coping with change and facilitating survival. Parable of the Sower deals with change and survival in very physical ways, but I can see the book offering a metaphor for dealing with all sorts of change and enhancing one's survival through that change to whatever exists on its other side.

Interestingly, Lauren also lives with a "disease" called hyperempathy syndrome, which means that she feels in her own body andy pain or pleasure that she sees others experiencing. This is important to consider because, on a larger level, if our society is to survive the many changes that are occurring now, we need some of that hyperempathy; we need to place ourselves in the skins of others, as best as possible, and imagine that their pain is ours, their well-being is ours. Our faiths, our various religions, acknowledge this. Our faith, then, whether organized into a religion or not, helps us to survive change and to live in community.

And faith can help us thrive. It is what gives Lauren hope for the future of her community and ultimately society. It does the same for me.

An Affirmation

love is a place

& through this place of

love move

(with brightness of peace)

all places

yes is a world

& in this world of

yes live

(skilfully curled)

all worlds

--e.e. cummings

Today, I am saying yes to full presence, even though I didn't sleep much; to gratitude for my family and for my work which helps support us; to patience with myself and others, instead of the crankiness I usually feel when sleepy; to smiles and lightheartedness, to not taking things so seriously.

What are you saying yes to today?

Toward a More Spacious Heart

Have you ever encountered a person who pushed all your buttons without even trying, someone to whom you have a deep, visceral reaction even upon your first encounter? I did recently, and I couldn't figure out why I reacted so strongly to her, why I wanted to avoid her entirely, why everything she said forced me to take shelter in the meditative calmness of my breath and the recognition of the thought-root of emotions.

Yesterday, I finally understood.

This woman, whom I will call S., said something to me that was decidedly confrontational, though veiled in sweetness. With the look on her face, the tone of her voice, and especially my emotional response, the answer clicked into place. "That's P.!" I thought to myself. "She's P., and she's here so that I can learn something." P. was a friend with whom I needed to part ways. Just like S., P. would hide aggression and anger under smiles and sweetness. It took me a long time to recognize that the friendship was more painful than genuine. I'm glad it hasn't taken me long to recognize the similarity of my emotional response to S.

With this new awareness, I can be much more generous of spirit. I know S. is not P. I know that she is not meant to be my friend (our relationship is solely professional). I know that I have no history with her and that I don't want to let any baggage taint my interactions with her. And with this awareness, I can be much more compassionate toward her and myself. It helps too that, right after my realization, S. opened up her own home and table to anyone who had nowhere to go on Thanksgiving. I could see the sincerity of her generosity, and my own heart became more spacious.

This spaciousness is the open heart I strive for, the heart filled with love and generosity, kindness and compassion. Awareness and compassion really do change everything. And a spacious heart feels so much healthier than a closed one. Blood moves through tissue, not bone. Love moves through openness, not stone.

Letting Go

Some people say that when you don't know what to do in a situation, you should do nothing. I like to tweek this a little bit: when I don't know what to do, I should pray and then wait for an answer. That answer can come in the form of a "sign," or my intuition, or some other way, but for me the answers are rarely clear when I obsess, worry, and dwell on the problem. Since I am prone to over-analysis, I often think through all the scenarios and never conclude on the best option because all options have benefits and drawbacks. I make a decision, then I change my mind and decide the opposite; then, considering anew some minutiae, I make the first decision again. My attempts at "control" are both exhausting and self-defeating.

So, I will pray, as I always do, but this time I will let go after the prayer. I will try not to dwell on the problem of what to do about our house, our neighborhood, our finances. Wasn't I just writing about gratitude and faith? Yes. That's right. My prayer, then, will sound something like: "Thank you for the roof over our heads; please show us what to do about the rest of the house!" Now, the letting go--of anxiety, overthinking, expectation--with each and every breath.

Saving Daylight, Treasuring Darkness

Yesterday morning, when the time changed, I woke up at 4:15 and couldn't get back to sleep. I've been told that this time of the morning is another liminal time, an in-between time when we can be most receptive to spiritual work, so it was a good time for my daily meditation. I love this time of the morning, when the house is still and dark. L. and V. are still sleeping then, and I have a few moments to myself. Because the moon is in its waxing gibbous phase, it has been bright, and I've enjoyed its white light shining on me in the darkness. And with the weather finally feeling a bit cooler, I feel the presence of autumn, of the turning-inward time. What a magical time of year this is, always my favorite...until spring, that is.

This morning, I'm again up early, enjoying the stillness, the moonlight, the warmth from the heater. I appreciate having this darkness in which to turn inward, to check email, to blog, to enjoy my tea. This time allows me to care for myself while saving daylight for my family (and, yes, work too), and believe me, at eight-months old, V. really powers through the daylight hours. She's "on," full-blast, throughout the day, sometimes with hardly a nap for recharging. Sometimes before I get up in the morning I think about staying in bed, trying to charge myself up even more for the day ahead, but these dark hours are part of my energy source. As long as I've gone to bed early enough, I feel these hours are more beneficial to my well-being than extra sleep. And so I'll sign off now. It's time for meditation and asana...