Rawness of a Broken Heart

An analogy for bodhichitta is the rawness of a broken heart. Sometimes this broken heart gives birth to anxiety and panic, sometimes to anger, resentment, and blame. But under the hardness of that armor there is the tenderness of genuine sadness. This is our link with all those who have ever loved. This genuine heart of sadness can teach us great compassion. It can humble us when we’re arrogant and soften us when we are unkind. It awakens us when we prefer to sleep and pierces through our indifference. This continual ache of the heart is a blessing that when accepted fully can be shared with all.”

~ Pema Chodron

Renunciation

I came across this saying recently, and it made me think:
Suzuki Roshi said, "Renunciation is not giving up the things of this world, but accepting that they go away."
I have been focused on loss these past few months. I think it is time to work from a place of growth instead of loss.

Surrendering Aggression

Love is a state of mind without a center or self. Therefore, it doesn’t feel threatened. Since, it is not afraid it isn’t obliged to judge everything on the basis of what it stands to lose or gain in the relationship. So, love is able to simply appreciate the present moment without seeking ownership or destruction. It is free of aggression… This sort of open door policy is generosity. Of course, this is scary from a certain point of view…

The ego devotes all of its time and energy to keeping the door shut. However, the door swinging open is always a possibility precisely because there is a door! This possibility drives the ego mad or gives rise to a a certain kind of paranoia. On the other hand, this door is our “soft spot” or “basic goodness.” It is the indestructible quality of sanity. The door is an eternal reminder that sanity is all that there is.

We could be in the midst of a knock down drag out fight with our significant other. In our rage we say something hurtful, and then BOOM! We see it in their face. We made them sad; their feelings are hurt. Our selfish/ self-centered agenda has destroyed itself. Egocentricity is unsustainable. Life shatters all of our silly little selfish plans. Sanity immediately recognizes this sadness in the other, and begins to express itself. Insanity is revealed to be nothing more than sanity misunderstood, and we remember that we love this person, and that is all that matters! It is a soft spot…

The most subtle expression of generosity is mindfulness, or simply observing. Listening. Watching. Generosity is participation free of aggression or the neurotic need to control. No need to grasp or defend- simply listen. Life is very spacious; all we have to do is acknowledge it. Basic goodness is the potential embedded in the human condition that invites us to do just that.

~ Chogyam Trungpa

Chogyam Trungpa | Decency

“If you are a warrior, decency means that you are not cheating anybody at all. You are not even about to cheat anybody. There is a sense of straightforwardness and simplicity. With setting-sun vision, or vision based on cowardice, straightforwardness is always a problem. If people have some story or news to tell somebody else, first of all they are either excited or disappointed. Then they begin to figure out how to tell their news. They develop a plan, which leads them completely away from simply telling it. By the time a person hears the news, it is not news at all, but opinion. It becomes a message of some kind, rather than fresh, straightforward news. Decency is the absence of strategy. It is of utmost importance to realize that the warrior’s approach should be simple-minded sometimes, very simple and straightforward. That makes it very beautiful: you having nothing up your sleeve; therefore a sense of genuineness comes through. That is decency.

- Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Sometimes I wonder about this straightforwardness, and I wonder if I am just naive or truly the "warrior" that I was supposed to be. It seems the world don't make it easy for someone trying to be decent in this world. I wish it was easier.

Things in Perspective, Sometimes

We have reached May 2011, and it has been a stressful year. I told my friend V recently that 2011 feels like the year of loss. I lost friendships (plural) through death, and through an inability to control my emotions.

Recently I find myself trying to make amends with some friends. Some of these attempts have been more successful than others. Along the way, I also made a few new friends, and enriched my relationship with others.

So maybe it wasn't a total loss. Maybe it is as they say, one door closes, another door opens.

I have been trying to maintain a daily meditation practice, and while it isn't a perfect record, at least some effort has been made. If you look at the list on the right column of this blog, you will notice I have been reading a bit of Pema Chodron. She has been a tremendous inspiration for me this year.

Maybe the meditation is kicking in. I find myself being able to step back and take things in perspective again. Things move in cycles - sometimes your relationships are wonderful and your life is full of warmth and joy. Sometimes, it's cold and hurtful, and no matter what you try to do, things don't work out. You lose some, you win some.

I lost some friends this year. But I mended some relationships along the way. Maybe the people that left will return one day. Lately I keep coming back to certain passages by Pema Chodron:

Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

Let there be space in my heart, in my life for things when they fall apart.

To Love the Questions

I had look forward to 2011 as a better year. Then a few weeks into 2011, I fell out with someone very important to me. We are still not on talking terms. I don't know if I will ever be allowed to mend bridges. Maybe one day, maybe never.

For a while, 2011 felt like a year of loss. I lost a few more friends this year: through misunderstanding, through my emotional state of mind, and one because of an illness.

I am having a lot of difficulties at my current job. I also have some wonderful colleagues, most of whom have recently quitted because they could not bear working with my boss anymore.

Once in a while I manage to breathe a little in between everything that life has been throwing at me, and sometimes, I think there might be a reason behind everything that came my way. The difficulties at work make me grateful for the little kindness and generosity I encounter at work. Losing some of my good friends make me appreciate the ones that are still around.

So maybe there is a reason behind everything that has come to pass. I need to keep that in mind every time the pressures build up and I start lamenting, "Why me?"

Maybe there is a reason behind losing some friends. Maybe it is just not yet the right time, and right now both of us are supposed to be doing other things.

“…be patient to all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

GLEE | Get It Right

I love Glee. It has this right blend of campiness with high school melodrama, and knows how a good song with the right lyrics sometimes just hits you the right way.



Rachel:
What have I done
I wish I could run away from this ship going under
Just trying to help
Hurt everyone else
Now I feel the weight of the world is, on my shoulders

What can you do when your good isn't good enough
And all that you touch tumbles down
Cause my best intentions
Keep making a mess of things
I just wanna fix it somehow
But how many times will it take?
Oh how many times will it take for me
To get it right
To get it right

Can I start again
With my faith shaken,
Rachel with Santana:Cause I can't go back and undo this
I just have to stay
And face my mistakes
Rachel with Santana:But if I get stronger and wiser, I'll get through this

Rachel with Santana:
What can you do when your good isn't good enough
And all that you touch tumbles down
Cause my best intentions
Keep making a mess of things
I just wanna fix it somehow
But how many times will it take?
Oh how many times will it take for me
To get it right

Rachel:
So I throw up my fist
Throw a punch in the air
And accept the truth
That sometimes life isn't fair

Rachel with Santana:
I'll send out a wish and I'll send out a prayer
And finally someone will see
How much I care

Rachel and New Directions:
What can you do when your good isn't good enough
And all that you touch tumbles down
Cause my best intentions
Keep making a mess of things
I just wanna fix it somehow
But how many times will it take?
Oh how many times will it take

Rachel: To get it right
To get it right

Adele: "Don't You Remember" - Live AOL Sessions

I love Adele.