The Path of the Waking Heart
When one opens unconditionally to love, pain, and desire, an aching heart becomes a waking heart.
Many contemplative traditions focus on quieting and stilling the mind, attenuating the cacophany of thoughts and dampening the white noise produced by our persistent mental models of the world (i.e., the self situated in a particular point on the timeline in spatial relation to all things not of the self). When the noise is vastly reduced, the gentle hum of being, embedded in pure silence, becomes audible. Within this hum is everything right in front of us that we never see, the suchness before it has been transcribed into code by the logical mind. Its essence is indivisible, awakened, luminous love.
Another perhaps complimentary route to this awakening is to amplify the hum of being by opening the heart. The chatter of the mind is lost in the hum the way raindrops are lost in the ocean.
Thus, we can either strive to reduce what impedes us, to eliminate the “negative” (quiet the mind), or we can train our attention on the “positive” (open the heart). I prefer the two combined.
Adyashanti and Loch Kelly discuss heart awakening in contrast to mind awakening alone:
The path of the waking heart is not always easy, but the reward is beyond description. Behind us is the transient yet alluring comfort of ordinary life characterized by a strong focus on the self and the incessant pursuit of affection, admiration, and control over everything that happens.
Looking ahead, we see endless darkness or searing fires. It seems we will die if we keep going, but the death that awaits is the death of the ego, or the illustion of a separate self, and the death of everything impermanent. What remains is the indestructible, everything the mystics try and fail to put into words.
We enter the fire by choosing to love no matter what the circumstances or who the recipient.
What does it mean to choose love? I’m still learning. This website follows my efforts to understand and embody unconditional love. The challenge is to act from a place of wisdom but not from a place of fear or insecurity. Although the death of the ego is a consequence of opening to love, we must include ourselves in our circle of love.
In the darkest moments, choosing love feels like a kamikaze mission. On the cusp of choosing, the tendency for self-preservation is intensified. We might plunge into love, or we might completely freak out. This is when reality feels like hell, but the advice of Winston Churchill is apt: “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
Love and blessings.
