Once, I was invited to a dinner, and I mistakenly thought it was a date. Sitting near the kitchen, I was conversing with the cook when the cook asked me a question. He thought I was the host’s significant other. My “date,” who overheard the question, shouted across the room, correcting the cook’s misconception, something about not having a significant other. In that moment, my heart sank, and I felt terribly out of place. “I shouldn’t be here,” I thought. I wanted to leave, to shirk away and curl up in some corner by myself, maybe cry a little.
However, at that time, my mantra was “keep your heart open no matter what.” “I have a choice,” I thought. “I can walk away, cradling my bruised ego and feeling sorry for myself, or I can stay and offer my company to someone who cares about me and did in fact invite me over.”
I decided, with much conscious effort, to keep my heart open. I stood up and walked over to the bookshelf. I grabbed the first book that caught my eye, closed my eyes, opened to a random page, and planted my finger on a random spot. When I opened my eyes, I saw that my finger was pointing at the phrase “open heart.” Yes! Validation. The book was Emptiness Dancing, by Adyashanti. It happened to be my copy on loan. I continued reading:
“Open mind, open heart. Realize that there isn’t somebody in there to protect. There is no need for an emotional barrier or the feelings of separation and isolation that come from that barrier. The only reason you ever thought that you needed protection was because of a very innocent misunderstanding. This happened because when you were given a concept of yourself in very early childhood, you also received a kit with which to build walls that would protect this concept. You learned to add to the kit as circumstances arose. If a good dose of anger seemed useful, you would add that to the kit, or perhaps you added resentment, shame, blame, or victimization. Whether you cling to a self-image as a good person or an inadequate person, the kit of identity is used to protect that image.
This is very innocent. It happens without your knowing that it’s happening. It continues until you realize that inherent in this holding of ‘me’ as a self-image in the mind and body is the belief that you need protection. You can’t have one without the other. They come in the same box.
When you drop your protection, the truth comes in and takes away the self-image. That’s why the self-image came with a wall, because without the wall, the remembrance of your true nature is going to jump in fast and take away the self-image, whether good or bad… When the emotional wall opens up, you become open-hearted.”
Adyashanti went on to describe the love that arises spontaneously when we stop seeing everything in relation to this self-image and instead drop the walls and open up to the world as it is.
I returned the book to the shelf and joined the wonderful dinner and focused my mind on enjoying what was, as it was, and appreciating the gift of friendship. I felt happy and connected, and my unrequited affections melted once more into a more mature and genuine tenderness. I think the choice to keep my heart open helped me become a more loving person. Often, closing the heart inadvertently leads to self-absorbtion and makes it difficult to see the needs of others. Opening, in contrast, despite all the fear, is a gift of love.
