This is my last post on The Wise Heart, and I want to begin by thanking Mary Ann for initiating this blog and maintaining it. Doing a “slow reading” of a book with a group of good friends has been a wonderful experience, and an entirely new way to experience a text. So thank you, Mary Ann! Let us proceed into 2010 with Radical Acceptance.
Kornfield’s last chapter is called “The Awakened Heart.” And for me, this is what the practice has been about this year--a process of opening my heart to what is present in this moment, to who I am in this moment, to what I have to offer in this moment.
Kornfield says, “We have within us an extraordinary capacity for love, joy, and unshakable freedom.” I have taken to the Buddhist tradition largely because of this notion that we already possess what we most deeply desire. Yes, we forget, but we are constantly called to wake up. And when we wake up, we move forward in confidence knowing that we are the Four Radiant Abodes: loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
And Kornfield says, though these conditions may be innate, the Buddhist path uses systematic trainings to cultivate these conditions. These trainings include meditation, visualization, directed inquiry, awareness of thoughts, attention to feelings, and other reflective practices such as writing, insight dialogue, mindful viewing, conscious breathing, progressive relaxation, and moment by moment mindfulness. Our work together this year has been the practice of cultivating these new conditions within ourselves.
I am grateful to the circle of Holy Friends who have participated in this collaborative enterprise of waking ourselves up to the truth of who we are and the world we inhabit, and look forward to another year of practice. Who knows where our practice will take us this year, but as the Quakers say, “Way will open.”
