Wise Heart Way

Visually Challenged?

I have to admit that the first time I read The Wise Heart I pretty much skimmed through Chapter Eighteen, called “Sacred Vision:  Imagination, Ritual, and Refuge.”  For some reason, I have never been very good at visualization, and though I’ve always been deeply attracted to ritual, I’ve not been very interested in sacred images. So the chapter just didn’t do much for me.  The second time through has been the same.  I have very few highlights in the chapter (a sure sign that not much is connecting), and I pretty much skimmed through the chapter with little engagement.

But something interesting has happened in the last day.  On Thursday, Mary Ann posted principle eighteen:  “What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and our consciousness.  Visualize freedom and compassion.”  And there was something about seeing the principle against the beautiful bright background of our Wise Heart Way site that allowed this principle to bore a bit deeper into my mind.  I’ve been thinking about it since then.  Not anything profound, for sure, just thinking about visualizing and wondering just how does one visualize freedom?  What does compassion look like, I thought.  I seem to be visually challenged cause I just can’t get there.  I put the book away, waiting for the beginning of next month to plunge into Chapter Nineteen, “Buddhist Cognitive Training,” something I can get my teeth into.

This morning, I woke up at my usual time, around 5:30 a.m.  I lay in bed saying my prayers and letting my mind catch up to my body.  As is my wont, I caught myself thinking about the day before—rehearsing conversations I’d had, seeing tiny moments from the day, scanning through previously experienced emotions or thoughts.  I try to catch myself in these early morning reveries (sometimes they are more like obsessions) and get back to the present, back to the breath, back to the prayers, but eventually the mind navigates its way back to rehearsal of the past.  An annoying pattern, for sure.

But then, for some reason, I thought of principle eighteen:  “What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and consciousness.”  And I realized that I’m not visually challenged; but I’m visualizing events that have already taken place.  How can I change if I’m constantly visualizing the past, I wondered?  What would happen if I started visualizing the day ahead of me instead of the day behind me?

So I started.  Right there in bed, I decided to see myself as I want to be in the next twenty-four hours.  I see myself moving through a yoga class with strength and agility, absolutely pain free.  I see myself with my doctor this afternoon, and he’s telling me to calm down about the knee; it’s healing nicely.  I see myself sitting in front of my computer, pounding out the revisions of Twelve Doors, feeling creative and pleased with my words.  I see myself being helpful and attentive to a student who is struggling with a writing project she’s doing for me.  I see myself calm and happy and deeply responsive to experiences that arise.

Well, it’s not quite what Kornfield was talking about in this chapter.  If you read the practice exercise he gives on page 292, you’ll see that he’s going for a much deeper sort of visualization, working with a sacred image.  His practice directs us toward compassion, courage, purity, and luminous radiance.  But for right now, I’m going to start with a baby step and strive for visualizing my future self instead of re-watching my past self.   In fact, I think I’m going to try an experiment, and for the next 15 days visualize the specific ways I see myself in the future.  Want to join me?  It might be fun to see how such a practice would change our daily experiences.   If nothing else, it will make my morning wake-up more interesting since I won’t be watching a movie I’ve already seen!

Principle #18: What we repeatedly visualize changes our body and consciousness. Visualize freedom and compassion.

Practice: Visualization

Writing and Karma

     Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Peter Carlson takes exception to the notion of the universe “conspiring” to bring lessons to individuals.  This is a notion that is firmly set in New Age thinking—that there is some force “out there” pulling together exactly the circumstances needed to push us to new understandings of ourselves.  People say, “Isn’t it amazing how the universe brings us exactly what we need in order to grow or change?”   I say this all the time as a way of recognizing some mysterious connections that seem to form out of my experience, and push me where I might otherwise not go.  The perfect book will come along to clarify an idea I’m grappling with.  A lover will challenge me to face the shadow side of my personality, the one I was barely aware of.  A comment from a friend will reveal an insensitivity I practice.  Lessons abound, it seems.  Eckhart Tolle says, “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” 

     But Carlson says it isn’t so much that there’s a “force” out there arranging things for my benefit as much as my own brain constructing meaning around the experiences that are before me.  Our consciousness selects events, dynamics, gestures that accumulate around issues we need to address. 

     Whether this mysterious serendipity works from the outside or the inside, I’m grateful for it, because it seems to happen a lot to me.  And once again, I find myself beginning my response our reading this month with:  The universe has brought me the very essay I needed to read today.   My last writing about The Wise Heart was a long letter to two close friends, and I have not posted it out of respect for the privacy of the two recipients of the writing.  Suffice it to say that Chapter 16, “Suffering and Letting Go,” was a profound chapter to me, and came to me at precisely the moment I was attempting to organize the ideas of a long and intense conversation that the three of us had had. 

     This week, with Chapter 17, I once again find clarity in the words of Kornfield, and solace in the face of a slightly challenging turn of events with regard to a writing that “went awry.”  The substance of my writing, and the particular circumstance out of which it emerged, are not really pertinent here; rather, what interests me is the ways in which our words can miss the mark—no matter how carefully we try to compose them.  It’s an old tale, of course, and anyone who takes words seriously has grappled with the challenge of expressing exactly what you think you’re trying to say.  Notice all the qualifications there.  It’s so damn hard to write exactly what you think you’re thinking.  The avenues of error are multitudinous!

      On the other hand, we also know that writing is a generative act.  Most of the time, I figure out what I’m trying to say in the act of writing.  So given the slipperiness of my own understanding of my words, it’s no surprise that those words would engender a number of interpretations by other readers.  Books and books have been written on this topic, and I’m not really interested in exploring the communication triangle here.  But when you actually experience the surprise of having your words grievously miss their mark, the communicative act becomes intensely personal.

     And then comes Kornfield and his chapter on karma, “The Compassion of the Heart:  Intention and Karma.”  Karma, he says, is the result of our intention.  And further, he says, “The most effective way to direct our karma is to clarify our motivation and set an intention.”  Intention and motivation are the roots of karma.

      I read this chapter just as I was feeling anxious that my words had caused someone else pain or discomfort.   This was not my intention at all!  So what is a writer to do?  Practice, Kornfield would say.  “We must practice wise speech, non-contentiousness, generosity, and compassion over and over again, in trivial and important situations alike.”  The Buddha said that practicing right speech means asking ourselves three questions:  1)  Is it true?   2)  Is it kind?  3) Is it necessary or useful?  If you can’t say yes to all three, it might be best to refrain from speaking lest you demonstrate a lack of compassion.

    When I speak to a friend, I want to speak with generosity and compassion.  Knowing how to speak the truth and simultaneously encompass those qualities is a challenge to all who take up the Buddhist path.  The practice that Kornfield offers at the end of this chapter is indeed a case of the universe conspiring to bring me exactly what I need at this very moment (sorry Peter Carlson!):  “. . .bring the highest possible intentions to each act.  Notice if they contain the elements of compassion for others and for yourself.  Notice if they are wise and courageous.”  Such a practice creates the karmic path upon which I walk.

Principle #17: Be mindful of intention. Intention is the seed that creates our future.

Practice: Meeting Difficulty with Wise Intention

Homage to the Toe River Train

This year, we arrived at the Blue Ridge cabin in deepest summer. The sunshiny, glossy greenness and lushness, the piercing light is indescribable, and, because we’re perched beneath a mountain road, there is a sense of drowning in the color green. The last visit was early October: Yellow and scarlet leaves crunched beneath our feet. I remember feeling old, like I was dying. It was as if some essential piece of me was shriveling and deteriorating and I could do nothing to stop it. This year, again, I transformed into an odd, silent creature. But this time I wasn’t dying; I was being altered. Under the Tulip tree, I sat astonished by the sheer weight of my grasping. Every few hours, the little Toe River train whistled by, slinging itself around the river’s curves, screeching through the thick foliage. When I sat meditation, I imagined filling the coal cars with all manner of things: grief, irregular souls, unrealized hopes, fears. I listened, sometimes in the dark, as the little train dutifully rushed memories through the fireflies and, finally, into nothingness. Over the days, I grew sleepy-eyed and indolent, senses open and listening.

Releasing Grasping in the Blue Ridge

Principle #16: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is not. Suffering arises from grasping. Release grasping and be free of suffering.

Practice: Letting Go

"The End of Suffering" -- Good luck with that!

I felt myself getting all worked up recently during two separate conversations with two different friends about the same essay in the New York Times. The author wrote about a time -- two decades into her marriage -- when her husband told her, “I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I’m moving out. The kids will understand. They’ll want me to be happy.”  But the piece is not about her personal pain, or about divorce (he doesn't move out) -- it's about how she didn't buy into his words and subsequent unreliable behavior, but rather cooly gave him the "distance" he needed  (for six months) while she explained to their kids, "“Daddy’s having a hard time as adults often do."

I got worked up just now as I re-read the essay several times, and even more now that I am writing about it. Why? Because (and let me steal the words she used to deflect her husband's hateful words): I don't buy it.

"How could she remain so cool?" I asked both of my friends.

One friend: "Maybe she's a Buddhist."

Me: "Yeah, maybe she's the Dalai Lama."

(I think I just scared the other friend with how upset this essay made me. I haven't heard from him since.)

I have no doubt the writer has studied Buddhism. She writes, "You see, I’d recently committed to a non-negotiable understanding with myself. I’d committed to 'The End of Suffering.' I’d finally managed to exile the voices in my head that told me my personal happiness was only as good as my outward success, rooted in things that were often outside my control. I’d seen the insanity of that equation and decided to take responsibility for my own happiness. And I mean all of it."  By writing the essay she wants to help, "People who feel scared and stuck. Who believe their temporary feelings are permanent."

awareness test

Principle #15 Delusion misunderstands the world and forgets who we are. Delusion gives rise to all unhealthy states. Free yourself from delusion and see with wisdom.

There is no practice in this chapter.