Community Blog

A common misapprehension about meditation is that its aim is to attain a peaceful uninterrupted state of bliss and luminosity. When we meditate, especially in initial stages of practice, what we often experience are emotions that may feel unbearable, or even wrong. Instead of bliss and light, we may encounter restlessness, aversion, low energy and difficult emotions. These may arise with physical manifestations—tightened throat or heart, burning sensations, shallow breathing.... It may feel natural to want to constrain, suppress, stop these all too familiar marks of our fear, anxiety, yes, imperfection.

The gift of mindfulness practice is that in any moment of anxiety or fear, we are called to open our hearts, to know we have the courage to be with even our deepest, darkest fears. An old Hasidic story says that the teachings are placed on, not in, our hearts, so that when the heart breaks, the teachings fall in. We hear, reflect on and put into practice, the teachings, so that in the turmoil of anxiety and fear loving awareness, into which we train our hearts, is our response—trusting that loving, compassionate, peaceful presence is what is most healing in the experience of the broken, anxious or fearful heart.

Practice is not limited to sitting meditation. In the Chan tradition, it is taught that the “Silent Illumination” evoked by practice can cover all our activities so that life does not become stressful as soon as we arise from the cushion. This is heart advice for “Silent Illumination” while working. The principles are the same for all activity:

What is the best response to our share of the joy and pain of the world? Are we tossed by the winds, inclining to exuberance when things go our way or to depression when they don’t? What evokes appropriate and balanced response?

Everyone’s life is, by nature, continually vulnerable to pain. Remembering this is the gateway to mudita (often translated as appreciative joy or joy for the joy of others), the third of the four Brahmaviharas (Boundless or Supreme States).

Compassion (Pali: karuna), the second of the four Brahmaviharas (Divine or Supreme states), is the spontaneous response of the heart of metta to suffering it encounters. Etymologically, “com” is “with” and “passion” is “suffering.” We are WITH the suffering, not above it with pity or rejecting it in fear. Compassionate response is based on the dignity, integrity and well being we know belongs to every creature, including ourselves, our feeling of mutual resonance and natural connectedness in the face of the universal experience of loss and pain.